Don't Shoot the Fish
Now, I've got a question for ESRB (the darn games raters). Why is it
that for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune there is gratuitous bloodshed of
human life, but the fish cannot be killed? Why? Because you said it
would affect the rating. Is a totally realistic game M just because you
can kill anything that walks, or due to its actual content? Why is it
that anything goes so long as it's not so "insensitive", but a T game
can have a body count of 10,000 people, but if ten animals are killed,
it gets an M? Something smells fishy.
Granted, games are interactive, but have you ever considered that
shooting a virtual animal will have much less consequence than shooting
a virtual person? That is a true crisis, that you would devalue life of
humans to the extent where we are down to being able to kill each
other, but not animals?
Open Letter To EA Games
You know that all your copy protection is doing is promoting piracy,
right? What ends up happening when you implement a hard-core system of
copy protection is that the normal users get so darn annoyed that they
have no choice but to crack your software. Now, I'm no professional,
but I can rip all your sound and music assets out of any game you've
ever made with one simple, freeware, open source tool. And it's not
breaking into the files. It's just letting the game play them. What you
seem not to understand is this:
People have
always pirated games. They always will. Accept that. If you cannot, you
will lose your legitimate userbase due to the fact that they're too fed
up with the draconian system.
Also, you do
realize that I refuse to buy pretty much any of your games with a year
on the title because of three reasons: First, what I end up doing is
paying you to watch ads, and they're not even blended in nicely.
Second, they're the same game for the fiftieth time straight. I really
couldn't care less about your shovelware. Third, there are better
free/open-source games with lower system requirements, better or equal
graphics, and they actually push the gamplay envelope. Why do I buy the
conventional games you make when I can get an open-source or shovelware
version for fractions of the price and the same level of enjoyment?
Granted, I like Need For Speed (Most Wanted, until my computer started
hatin' it), and Battlefield 2142 (though my computer started hatin' it
also), but Tremulous takes the place of both of those easily.
Why Open Source Games are Better
Now, this is simply my way of saying why Open Source/Freeware/Indie
games (though it's guaranteed acurate for Open Source games) are better
than mainstream games (commercial, free-to-play). First, these small
games need to overcome their $100M budget competitors somehow, and they
do it by simple introspection. Not "What makes a good FPS?" but "What
do we want this game to be?". I thank id for this entirely, because
without them so many Q3 and Q2 engine games that are awesome
(Tremulous, Warsow, others), would not exist without their
open-sourcing. You make a T game, I'll buy it. A small team of game
developers will think outside the box. They cannot do the fancy
scripting or graphics of big companies, but they can try as hard as
they can to make an enjoyable game.
Take a
mainstream game. It's good, solid, and decent, but unless it's a
pioneer franchise (TES being a notable example), it's the same old crud
you bought last year. Nothing new, nothing great. However, take
Tremulous. It's a demigod among games. It has the strategy and action
of any game, combining them perfectly. It has unbalanced sides, a good
community, Q3 engine, and good graphics. Quite simply, Tremulous and
other low-budget games are beating out high-budget games simply because
the low-budget games are not afraid to cater to niche denominations,
put in new gameplay trends, and open up development to their community.
Through this, you have a game that is durable, flexible, and, best of
all, not $60 with in-game ads.