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Crytek: It Would Be ‘Awesome’ If Next-Gen Consoles Blocked Used Games
“Would an end to used game sales be good for developers?
German developer Crytek sold 3 million copies of Crysis 2. Another 4 million copies were pirated, making it the most pirated game of 2011.
“It’s very flattering and upsetting at the same time,” Crytek’s director of creative development, Rasmus Højengaard, told CVG. “Obviously you miss so much revenue, it’s so clear that a lot of people want to play your game but they don’t really want to pay for it, which is unfortunately really disappointing.”
“It’s also a little flattering because people are willing to bother download these 10GB files or whatever the game takes because they think it looks great. We obviously want to avoid that this time, but even if we can convert 25 percent of those gamers into paying customers [you have an extra million sales].”
The thing about piracy that is often left unsaid is that not all of those pirated copies would convert into game sales even if we could eradicate piracy entirely. 4 million pirated copies of a game is not the equivalent of 4 million lost sales, even if it may indeed represent lost revenue. This isn’t to either justify or condemn piracy – it’s a complicated issue that stems largely from a lack of trust – but simply to point out that sometimes combating piracy is not the best way to staunch the bleeding.
Which brings us to used games, another phenomenon Crytek would be happy to end if it could. Asked whether he’d like to see a used game blocking feature in next-gen consoles, Højengaard said:
“From a business perspective that would be absolutely awesome. It’s weird that [second-hand] is still allowed because it doesn’t work like that in any other software industries, so it would be great if they could somehow fix that issue as well.”
(…)
The inevitable end of used games is probably just around the corner. Why change anything on the console side of the equation when the problem will “self-correct” on its own?
As to used games themselves, I’d be pretty happy with a digital download service like Steam replacing discs altogether on consoles, used games included. I’d be much less happy with some sort of built-in mechanism that renders used games useless without activation. What if my console breaks and I need to replace it? Would I need to pay to activate all my old games if I wanted to use them on the new machine? From a consumer perspective it would most definitely not be awesome.
That being said, the GameStop business model is hardly laudable. Yes, gamers should be allowed to sell their own games, but that doesn’t make GameStop an admirable middle-man for those transactions.
CVG’s Tom Ivan thinks that Crytek “would have received a great deal more revenue, were it not for second-hand game sales and piracy.” But it’s impossible to say if an end to used game sales would increase new game sales any more than an end to piracy would. People might simply buy fewer games, or fewer new releases.”
Source: Forbes
Steam is coming to Linux!
Michael Larabel (of Phoronix) met with Valve today; tweets “steam is coming to Linux…”:
And another quote here:
@michaellarabel
#valve does have Linux games coming plus other very positive Linux plans… I’ll briefly post some screenshots and such tonight.
And even more info here.
Valve’s new business model – pay less if you’re nice?
This one is interesting, Valve is trying to charge morons and jerks more for their games, nice people would pay less or play for free even.
In a podcast interview with Seven Day Cooldown, summarized by Develop, Valve Boss Gabe Newell discusses the payment model for upcoming strategy game DOTA 2.:
“The issue that we’re struggling with quite a bit is something I’ve kind of talked about before, which is how do you properly value people’s contributions to a community?”
“…the games industry has this broken model, which is one price for everyone. That’s actually a bug, and it’s something that we want to solve through our philosophy of how we create entertainment products".
“An example is – and this is something as an industry we should be doing better – is charging customers based on how much fun they are to play with. So, in practice, a really likable person in our community should get Dota 2 for free, because of past behaviour in Team Fortress 2. Now, a real jerk that annoys everyone, they can still play, but a game is full price and they have to pay an extra hundred dollars if they want voice.”
And the latest news is that they are going beyond this crazy idea into seeing what’s actually possible:
“We’re trying to figure out ways so that people who are more valuable to everybody else [are] recognized and accommodated. We all know people where if they’re playing we want to play, and there are other people where if they’re playing we would [rather] be on the other side of the planet.”
"It’s just a question of coming up with mechanisms that recognize and reward people who are doing things that are valuable to other groups of people."
This sounds like a scary idea, what do you guys think? What if “nice people” would just resale Steam games to “trolls”? This just doesn’t look so great to me.
Source: /.
Valve updates Steam’s account policy, you can now access your games while banned!
I can’t believe they finally did it. A lot of gamers were questioning why it wasn’t possible to access games in offline mode in Steam while an account was suspended or banned, but the real news is that you already can, Valve just never told anyone.
What’s more? Your games aren’t limited to offline mode.
While Valve doesn’t have a lot of legal lingo surrounding the use of their digital distribution service, they do make it known in the subscriber agreement consent form…
“Valve may terminate your Account or a particular Subscription for any conduct or activity that Valve believes is illegal, constitutes a Cheat, or which otherwise negatively affects the enjoyment of Steam by other Subscribers.”
One user put that clause to the test and was banned, however, he later found out that he wasn’t completely blocked out of accessing his games because of a recent policy update in Steam for account access, which has now been deemed as "account locking" instead of "account banning". According to a Steam volunteer moderator, he makes it clear that…
“Steam support stopped disabling Steam accounts a bit more than two months ago. This has been replaced with "account locking": you still have access to your games, but some restrictions are applied to your account (no trading, no cd key activation, no purchase allowed, etc.).”
He provides proof of this with screenshots of an account being banned but still having access to games in offline or online mode:
This means that gamers who have been banned either for fraudulent or nefarious purposes with the intent to use their Steam account for other activities other than gaming like an upstanding member of the interactive entertainment community, can still access the games they paid for.
There are simply restrictions added to the account but the content you paid for is content you still have access to.
Valve actually offers quite a bit of leeway in using their service, so getting banned is not something that’s particularly easy to do so long as you follow the rules. There are, however, some rare exceptions where tertiary license agreements are put into place for Steam games, particularly, EA’s games on Steam, where an EA EULA for a [now absent] product on Steam basically outlines the same sort of restrictions you would find on Origin. Of course, since it’s Steam, there’s no worries about "losing entitlements" or having third-party software scan your PC for you.
Valve’s head honcho, Gabe Newell, recently spoke out against these sort of practices that EA is using for Origin, saying that as the service stands right now it’s just not up to par to where it should be for consumers and gamers, and it’s just not doing anything super-well at the moment. It’s kind of hard to argue against that point.
At least gamers who went off the deep end and managed to get banned can still play their games and access the content on both Steam and Origin. So, in that regards, it’s a win-win situation for gamers no matter which digital distribution service you use.
However Steam’s official support representative has stated that:
“Games registered to suspended accounts will no longer be accessible; even in offline mode."
Of course, the support didn’t clarify if this applies retroactively for suspended accounts or the distinction between a suspended account or a locked account, so we’re awaiting official word from Valve on the matter.
Source: Cinemablend
Gabe Newell: DOTA 2 is going to be free-to-play, “it’ll have some twists”
“Gabe Newell denied meeting Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple in a recent podcast with Seven Day Cooldown, but that’s not all he said. He also mentioned that DOTA 2 will be free-to-play, but with a twist.
“It’s going to be free-to-play — it’ll have some twists, but that’s the easiest way for people to think about it,” he revealed.
“The issue that we’re struggling with quite a bit is something I’ve kind of talked about before, which is how do you properly value people’s contributions to a community?,” he mentioned when asked about what kind of “twist ” players can expect from the game.
“We’re trying to figure out ways so that people who are more valuable to everybody else [are] recognized and accommodated.
“We all know people where if they’re playing we want to play, and there are other people where if they’re playing we would be on the other side of the planet.
“It’s just a question of coming up with mechanisms that recognize and reward people who are doing things that are valuable to other groups of people,” he added.
He said that the free-to-play model Valve has in mind for DOTA 2 is completely unique and hasn’t been done before.
“When you start thinking about the different games that people play and you try to think about how people can create value or a service in one game and benefit somebody in a different game, you can start to see how the different games sort knit together,” Newell said.
“[You can see] how somebody who really likes Team Fortress 2 (TF2) can still be creating value for somebody who is playing DOTA 2 or Skyrim, or if somebody is a creator in one space how it can translate into another.
“In a sense, think of individual games as instance dungeons of a larger experience, if that makes sense as a concept.”
Tell us what you think in the comments section below.”
Source: Gaming Bolt
Valve reveals mystery hardware project: wearable computing
“This morning, Valve Software set the world of gaming news abuzz by attempting to hire hardware engineers. Now, Valve developer (and well-known programmer) Michael Abrash has revealed what kind of hardware the company is prototyping: computer technology you can wear.
It’s certainly an important time to admit such a thing, considering how Google’s Project Glass heads-up display generated so much interest last week, but Abrash cautions that you shouldn’t expect a product out of Valve anytime soon, if at all:
To be clear, this is R&D – it doesn’t in any way involve a product at this point, and won’t for a long while, if ever – so please, no rumors about Steam glasses being announced at E3. It’s an initial investigation into a very interesting and promising space, and falls more under the heading of research than development. The Valve approach is to do experiments and see what we learn – failure is fine, just so long as we can identify failure quickly, learn from it, and move on – and then apply it to the next experiment. The process is very fast-moving and iterative, and we’re just at the start. How far and where the investigation goes depends on what we learn.
The reveal is actually part of a long, fascinating blog post about how Abrash was first drawn to work at Valve, after years at Microsoft, Intel (on the canceled Larrabee graphics architecture) and id, where he coauthored Quake, not to mention how the intense freedom at Valve (and a love of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash) helped him start building the wearable computing R&D project in the first place. It’s hard to think of a better recruiting pitch, and he’s even asking for interested talent to shoot him an email. Head on over to our source link to take a look.”
Source: The Verge
Random giveaway!
Hi, just giving away random stuff:
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WDZF3-FRCTW-9GRIC
Tribes Ascend Soldier Utility Pack (activate in Extras menu in-game):
U1332CDC88019A4A8
Go go go!
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