Newell's Novel Notion

Let me be the first to say that I do not expect to update daily. Due to fortunate circumstances however, boredom has pushed me over the edge, and thus you have a little something to read today.

I had additions to yesterday's reflections on Battle.net 2.0 for StarCraft 2, but today I might just go for variety and talk about something completely different.

This is far from news, but head-honcho of Valve, one Gabe Newell had once mentioned in an interview (skip to 7:26; first part is here if you are interested in the rest) of an interesting business idea. At its core, he was interested in allowing consumers the option to contribute in funding developers to produce games. By pledging to the development of a game, developers would be getting financial support and a direction for the game, while the customers can guide developers to producing a game they will most enjoy. This serves to tie developers closer to the community, working upon the strengths of the symbiotic relationship. This idea is not exactly new - indie developers have often sought community donations, and liaised thoroughly with donators and community. Many private servers for MMORPGs adopt this business model as well.

This idea is not without problems, however. Too often I have seen promising developers and their titles fall through. If the average gamer were to lose his investment through such a case, the result can be incredibly stinging. It needs to be strongly stressed that the consumer is not just buying a vote in the game development process, but investing in a company that can flop in its entirety. Then there is the issue of monetizing community feedback to developers. The strongest opinion a developer could heed is the one that has the most money behind it. This seems unfair to those who may not have had an opportunity to invest, regardless of whether they care for the game or not. This could complicate the path of a developer, who usually aligns with a publisher to provide them with funding, to deal with market research and discover what consumers (and more importantly to some, the stockholders) want. It's cutting out the middleman to some extent, and that can be either good or bad. I suppose a possible solution is to reward via the game itself, lack of monetary gain will probably deter those looking to make a buck.

I would love to see the idea work. I love to support my favorite developers (and to some extent, publishers), and if I can pay to see them make a better game, I am quite willing to do so. Great care needs to be take however, to ensure we don't spawn forth a horrible investment model monster.

...And a not so quiet follow up

With the (rough and crude) formalities out of the way, I feel I must speak my mind.

The recent interview of StarCraft 2's Battle.net 2.0 has left me shocked. In a nutshell, features like chatrooms, LAN capability, online replays and cross-realm play have been omitted. While LAN play has been denied before, what is most mind bending is the lack of cross-realm play.

The implications of lacking cross-realm play are incredible - each region's StarCraft 2 is locked to play with its own region. Essentially, one must purchase the EU version to play with the Europeans, the South-East Asia version to play with Asia (with Oceania bundled in), and the US version to play with the North-Americans. In addition, each copy must register its own Battle.net account, such that there is no universal account that can handle different region versions. Given that StarCraft 2 is a three-piece epic, this implies that to be able to play the full experience with everyone, one must buy the three pieces, for each of three regions. That's nine StarCraft 2's. Now that the popular thing to do is to bump PC games up to $60USD a pop, that's $540USD for the comprehensive (vanilla, not collector's) package. We'd better hope that for that kind of price,  each part is content-packing enough to warrant buying three whole separate times.

Frank Pearce blames internet infrastructures for poor latency, resulting in poor gameplay as reason to cordon off continents. From what I know, this has not stopped any other RTS game in history from allowing cross-ocean connections. If Blizzard is concerned about latency, then they should develop a means to filter out faraway countries like a sane developer. Those with buddies can still connect at their peril, but at least also at their discernment. For a game franchise that is arguably as competitive as it gets, to split continents away from each other is counter-intuitive to too many degrees. What matters is choice, and Blizzard has chosen to remove it in their new infrastructures. This is effectively (i.e. with caveats) region-locking for the PC platform. Nigh unprecedented in history, and introduced, from all people, Blizzard, for a flagship product twelve years in anticipation.

Upon all this is lack of fan-craved online replays, chatrooms and LAN. While I do not play StarCraft competitively (or to any competent degree at all), those who are serious about the game often talk of chatrooms as a crucial point from which clans and groups co-ordinate and form. LAN play is by far the most 'pure' competitive experience, and to disallow such is a worrying trend in too many games. Each of these deserves to be an issue in its own right, but I will spare thee the lengthy prose.

Given what's been presented, I cannot say I have high hopes for the competitive, serious nature of play in StarCraft 2. I am not arguing that the core mechanics of StarCraft 2 is in jeopardy, but rather fear for my resolute brethren who desperately yearn for a unifying competitive RTS experience. Regardless of the outcome it'll be a gangbuster sell - StarCraft by name holds enough water that a hundred holes in the metaphorical bucket can do naught to stop it. Activision is simply a large powerhouse, and if consumers are to blindly buy what they have been marketed, we reward those who do not deserve it. And that of all things, dear reader, is most worrisome.

(P.S. For the piping-hot discussion, Team Liquid is as good a start as any.)

Quiet beginnings

A warm and delicious welcome to our (my) reader(s)!

This weblog is about video games in all its many forms. So please pardon us if we have misled you to believe that we are at all about food. There is much appreciation to be had for culinary delights (such as the Frankfurter, or the typical corn dog), but alas this blog only does so much as to ride on its coat-tails more than anything else.

I suppose introductions are in order. I, Wiener, have an alias that may not withstand probation. My hope is that this blog will reach far and wide to all platforms of video games. I have strong feelings and views for my hobby, so with any luck, my insight will prove an interesting article from time to time.

An aside: The blog is still (noticeably) very much under construction. I do not have excessive amounts of spare time in the week or two period to come - a great time to start blogging, indeed, but more effort will be put in soon.