The PC Centric Extravaganza 9.02.08
Posted by Chris Evans on 09.02.2008
Fallout 3, a Gamers Bill of Rights and much more in this weeks PC Centric Extravaganza.
The PC Centric Extravaganza 2nd September 2008
Welcome to another edition of The PC Centric Extravaganza, your home on 411 for all the best PC news, gossip and general writings. This week we take a look at what Ubisoft have to say about sales, Stardock's Gaming Bill of Rights and the start of a Football Manager 2008 feature. Read on.
Ubisoft on Sales in Europe
According to this GI.biz interview with Yves Guillemot Europe is now a bigger territory than the US. Yves claims that turnover in Europe is more than 5% higher than turnover in the US.
Q: Europe as a market has developed a lot in the past five years - how do you assess the territory's importance on the global stage now?
Yves Guillemot: First, our money - the pound or the euro - is very strong and because of that the turnover from those countries is heavier than they used to be. So for Ubisoft turnover Europe is actually more important than the US now, and by more than 5 per cent. It's become a very strong market for us.
I think there are lots of customers that want to play - because in Europe we love to play - the only problem we had was that the games were becoming more and more difficult to play. Now that there's more accessibility, some accessories that are helping people to have fun, I think this market has no limit in the growth it can have if we can make sure that the people that are coming in are staying.
It makes me wonder then who is in charge of Ubisoft's digital distribution efforts. Ubisoft titles on Steam are limited to North American customers, they are not available to any European gamers. I find it odd that they would declare that Europe is now a bigger market than the US, yet they still exclude it on Steam.
I think someone at Ubisoft has to go and sort things out, Steam may not be perfect, but if European sales are constantly on the up, then what better way to help drive this than to let people buy their products on Steam. Sort it out Ubi.
Stardock issue a Gamers Bill of Rights
The ever amazing Stardock have released a PC Gamer's Bill of Rights which sets out ten key points which PC gamer's can expect the company to uphold and which they hope other developers and publishers will adopt in time.
"As an industry, we need to begin setting some basic, common sense standards that reward PC gamers for purchasing our games," stated Brad Wardell, president and CEO of Stardock Corporation. "The console market effectively already has something like this in that its games have to go through the platform maker such as Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony. But on the PC, publishers can release games that are scarcely completed, poorly supported, and full of intrusive copy protection and then be stuck on it."
Wardell is entirely correct, we often get the short end of the stick when it comes to how we are treated by developers, publishers and even retailers. This is the kind of thing which should be adopted by many companies involved in PC games be it making them or selling them.
The Gamer's Bill of Rights:
1. Gamers shall have the right to return games that don't work with their computers for a full refund.
2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
3. Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game's release.
4. Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
5. Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.
6. Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won't install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.
7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
8. Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
9. Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
10. Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.
Lets take this point by point:
1 and 5. This has impacted on me in the past, while I will often only buy a game that I know will run on my machine I have had a couple of instances where a game has failed to install or run properly. Most recently this happened with a Splinter Cell game that I bought at retail from GAME. It refused to install on my PC (Starforce I reckon) so I took it back to GAME. Instead of giving me a refund they made me chose a game of the same price.
While I have been able to return a game where I hadn't opened the packaging it seems that retailers are often dubious about you returning a PC game to them. I can understand that if you do it regularly then they will suspect you of some dodgy dealings, but people should get the benefit of the doubt more often and be able to get full refunds.
2 and 3. Games should only be released if they are complete without bugs riddling the game through and through, there is no reason for not ensuring the game is complete before release. I know companies have time frames for when games must be released, but in order to ensure quality is maintained then delays should be acceptible.
This ties in with the expectation of meaningful updates post-release, often I have purchased games which have one or two patches which have fixed only a minority of the issues. Hello C&C The First Decade and many more. If the developer or publisher isn't willing to provide post-release support, then they should ask themselves why they are in the business. I don't look for support lasting for years and years, but companies have to do more than what they do at the moment. They should just look at Valve and what they are doing with their games.
4 and 6. What I love about Impulse (Stardock's digi distrib platform) is that you can play a game without having to use the program itself. The same is going to be true for Good Old Games, however this is where Steam fails, to play any game through Steam, online or off requires you to run Steam. While Steam is more stable than it used to be we should be able to play the game without running it. This applies to Spore too, it is mentioned in the PC Gamer review that updates to the game will only be supplied by the EA Downloader, not very good.
Again with a single-player game that requires a connection to the internet before playing, I ask myself why. I know developers are trying to combat piracy, but as only two thirds of people in the UK have internet access. (Source.) It is just bullshit that a single-player game needs the internet to be played.
In a similar vein games shouldn't install undeclared and potentially dangerous software on your machine. Think of all the grief Starforce has inflicted upon people in the past.
7. Damn right, if I have bought the game then I want to be able to download it myself as many times as I want as long as I own it. Who knows how many new PCs or suchlike I will go through while still wanting to play a game.
10. This isn't a big deal to me, but it is bloody annoying to find that you have to go hunting through your game collection to find the disk to a game you installed a year or so ago. This really puts me off playing some games, so it shouldn't be happening.
8. This point is for me the culmination of the rest of the points raised by Stardock. As PC gamers we often get treated like crap due to the fear of piracy that is spread by developers and publishers. We deserve to be treated like normal customers, not like potential criminals.
If you couldn't guess I am fully in support of this Bill of Rights from Stardock, they are becoming one of my favourite companies along with Valve. I hope some developers take these points on board and use them themselves.
Fallout 3 Videos and More
I'll be honest that I haven't been covering Fallout 3 as much as I would've liked to have done here, but I have just pre-ordered my special edition and am starting to feel a bit of a buzz of excitement build for it. That excitement is slowly building thanks to a deluge of Fallout 3 shit that has emerged from the Penny Arcade Expo.
First off we have an interview that Shacknews did with Bethesda VP Pete Hines and Fallout 3 lead artist Istvan Pely. Talk focus on DLC which will be of the style of the Knights of the Nine DLC for Oblivion, talk about the atmosphere of the game and questing and most importantly about comparisons many people are making about Fallout 3 being Oblivion, just with guns. A really good interview that anyone interested in the game should check out.
If you aren't interested in the game then watch this awesome collection of five videos from PAX showing off the early stages of the game.
Doesn't that just look bloody awesome?
Red Alert is Free
Command and Conquer has now been around for 13 Years! Imagine that, little old Command and Conquer has finally entered its teenage years, though for a game that doesn't count for as much as when a human enters their teens. Anyway to celebrate the 13th Anniversary of all things Command and Conquer-like EA are giving away the original Red Alert for absolutely nothing over on this website.
If you have never played the original...well where have you been all these years? I never got into the original as much as I did with Red Alert 2 but it is still a great game. All this is in lead up to Red Alert 3 remember.
You will need winzip or winrar to open the archived files, it will work on 95/98/XP fine, but you may need to do some tweaking for it to work on Vista.
After spending an hour or so in the Editor of Football Manager 2008 I have created a new team known as Thornhill F.C. (incidentally I live in an area of Cardiff called Thornhill. Shocking.) This will be the story of Thornhill, their highs and lows through the football season of 2007/2008. (I have to use FM08 for this as there isn't any FM09 available at the moment.)
Thornhill are starting off in the Blue Square South division which is pretty much the last division before complete football nothingness and the lowest level league in the English system I can go. The game is being started with all the English leagues playable, the Scottish Premier League and First Division and the Welsh Premier League. With a 'large' database and a start date of July 2007 I get ready to take control of Thornhill.
The finances of the club are pretty strong considering the league they are starting in. With over £900,000 in the balance we shouldn't be encountering many problems there. However my board have only given me a transfer budget of £10,000, I don't know what I will be able to do with such a small amount, buy a no-hoper from someone in the Welsh league? I think that will be it.
I have some issues though when looking at my squad, while all my players are Welsh, all but one is 16 or younger. That one exception is a man known as Evo, a player who I created in order to ensure that I have at least one good player at the club. He has pretty good stats and would be, according to my random AssMan (Assistant Manager) a great signing for any Premiership Club. Fortunately I set him up to have a very high loyalty rating so I hope to god that he doesn't leave me once a big team starts to sniff around him.
My first goal will be to try and find some new players, while Evo is going to be key man for me, I cannot rely solely on him. To succeed and cover any injuries I am going to need to sign some players. In go bids on some defenders from other teams in my league, hopefully I will get some luck with them. Issues arise once I realise that I am only £65 per week under my wage budget, this will be tricky.
With a first friendly game of the season against the little known Ely Rangers I have my AssMan select the team for me that he thinks best suits my players. Knowing what the AssMen are like from previous FM games I am dubious about whether he has made the right choices. At least he has picked the young star in the making Evo in the attack midfield role. My formation today is my classic 4-1-2-1-2 which is just a variation of the 4-4-2 Diamond. Some extra running lines and team instructions and I set off to my first game in charge of Thornhill.
Following a harrowing 3-2 defeat I realise that this is going to be an even tougher challenge than I thought at first. My star man was, as I expected Evo. Nobody else was able to stand up and make a claim on a starting position in my first proper game of the season. I don't know if I have the quality in my squad to compete in this league, and finding decent players at this level with such a small budget is a challenge I never usually get to experience. I am up for some interesting times.
I already fear that my dreams of marching up the leagues straight away are horribly out of synch with what I will achieve. I decide to move forward to my next match without trying to find any new players. I am up against League 2 side Shrewsbury. After heading into half-time down two goals to nil I make a few slight tactical adjustments.
My crowd of just over 300 are getting ready to head to the exits when disaster strikes on the 89th minute. My one and only right back is injured. With nobody trained in his position I throw on my young centre back Chris Champion into the fray. Fortunately he manages to survive the last few minutes without giving away any goals.
After returning to what I assume is a tiny hut by the ground (I only earn £210 a week) I learn that my one and only right back, Nick Jackson has fractured ribs. He is going to be out for anything between 3 weeks and 2 months. How the time frame for his lay off is so varied is probably down to the fact that my physio is the guy from the local pub who happens to have a First Aid Kit in the boot of his car. You are starting to see the difficulties I am posed with I hope.
Doing a quick player search I find a Stephen Rose waiting around for a club to sign him. He has experience at League 1 level so I hope he can do something for us, if he signs. Unfortunately he doesn't sign before my next friendly, an opportune time to leave this disaster in the making before it gets even worse.
Tally Ho!
That is all for this week, I'll be back next week with more PC focused news and opinion. See you soon.
