Is preventing piracy worth killing a market?

Congratulations are due to Ubisoft. As of today I haven’t heard of any confirmed cracks for Assassin’s Creed II (There are rumors, and there are counter rumors, and there are rumors that it is out there but is gimped in some way). Of course there was that small hiccup that prevented people from playing the game for over 12 hours, but that is a small price to pay to prevent piracy.

I had planned for this blog post to slam Ubisoft’s DRM, talk about how worthless it is and how even if it works people will boycott the games that have it and we will show Ubisoft that we won’t suffer broken products! Sadly I don’t think that this is the case at all.

I don’t believe that their addition of ridiculous DRM has hurt the games sales on the PC in any way. I also don’t believe that it has helped the sales, after all pirates probably aren’t going to buy your game anyway.

We won’t know for sure until sales figures come out but my guess is that the public has spoken. We may rail against all things DRM but it hasn’t stopped us from purchasing these games (I sadly bought it on the 360 long before I heard about the DRM included in the PC version. If I had known I never would have bought any copy). And don’t think that hearing about the PC’s DRM and deciding to get it on a console is going to “show” Ubisoft anything. They still got your money, and the money of thousands of other irate gamers.

We like to think that we stick to our guns and if a company does something terrible we won’t suffer their crap, but the truth of the matter is that Ubisoft games will continue to sell on PC and console, Activision games like Modern Warfare 3, 4, 5 and 6 (all coming in 2011 probably) will sell, and there is nothing we WILL do about it.

They called our bluff, smacked us in the face, and we will still come crawling back throwing money at them when the time comes. Well played Ubisoft, well played.

I’m going to go take a hot shower and debate changing my hobby from gaming to wood carving.

Not interested in StarCraft 2?

That’s not entirely accurate, but it does convey some of my feelings towards SC2. Let’s get one thing straight right away, I LOVED StarCraft. I spent dozens of hours on that game and I enjoyed every bit of it. All of that in the single player campaign.

That is exactly how I will enjoy StarCraft 2 as well, single player. Almost everyone is really excited for the multiplayer, but I’ve never been a fan of multiplayer unless it was an MMO or the occasional FPS.

So why am I not that interested in StarCraft 2 if I LOVED the first game? Do I doubt Blizzard? Not at all. The StarCraft cash shop has me a LITTLE concerned, but nothing too serious. No the truth is that I have heard the game is StarCraft with better graphics and a new story. That sounds awesome to a lot of people, but I am horrified that it IS like StarCraft.

The industry has come a long way since StarCraft released. Games like Company of Heroes and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II have released, forever changing my view of the RTS. Gone was the tedious base building (that admittedly some people love. Some people ALSO love spread sheets.) and gone was the hour and a half of gameplay that saw no combat as you built up your base.

In those games you kept moving, and that is something that StarCraft 2 has apparently not done. I just don’t think that I can go back to the build+bake style of RTS.

Speaking of Dawn of War II the expansion launches in four days, March 11th 2010! Chaos Rising!

Disassembled: A Review in Pieces – Champions Online 2

Welcome to the second review in pieces. Today I will be reviewing Champions Online levels 6-10. Will the review be better or worse as you ascend the ranks in Cryptic’s second Superhero MMO? Find out after the jump.