Escapist Podcast: DRM, Piracy & PC Gaming

[Jim Grim]

At the end there I thought 'Bully Kid' was someone who was going to be joining them next time. Turns out it was just one of the topics. Bully Kid would be an excellent blues name.

Also, good show.

 

[Taynas]

A. I really enjoyed this. It is nice to see the multiple sides of Yahtzee all represented on this site and it was awesome to hear Mickey and Yahtzee just talk about interesting stuff.
B. It agree with what someone said above though that they'd like to see these escapist podcast feature many different people especially the main escapist staff like Susan, John, Russ etc from time to time. Rotate who is doing these and it will be a fun treat at least for me.
C. I totally watch and enjoy Anthony Saves the World. Looking forward to next season!
D. While I agreed with much of what Yahtzee said about Borderlands in his Zero Punctuation review (the inventory interface was a beast to get used to), I also found that none of his complaints detracted from the game for me. Borderlands is one of my favorite games, I play it all the time and I would eagerly buy a sequel with new classes or really just enough additional game play elements added to warrant a sequel instead of just DLC.

 

[Toasty Virus]

The awkwardness when Mikey brought up Borderlands.

I love it!

 

[ewhac]

It'd be nice to explain the concept of what you're taking appart. What's this DRM?

DRM is the NewSpeak replacement for the term, "copy protection," a flawed -- some might say childish -- attempt to thwart the proliferation of unsanctioned copies of digital works.

 

[unacomn]

Did someone call me?

C&C Renegade did a lot of things frighteningly right. It was a superb first person perspective of a RTS legend. And the mutliplayer was ages beyond it's competition.

 

[Kurt Cristal]

Can we get an audio version of this?

 

[Tom Hill]

Just me or was that REALLY awkward between them, Mr. Saves the world seemed to think Yahtzee was just comedic genius rather than all round reviewer and generaly played devils advocate throughout a lot of it.

Would have preferred moviebob and ZP, but that's me.

 

[permacrete]

It was a good podcast, interesting, but they missed some obvious points. For example, the fact that DRM only applies to legitimate consumers, while pirates (presumably) enjoy the game with all that stuff hacked out. That means that the customer/sucker like me who pre-orders a game and pays full price at release gets a worse game experience than the schmuck who gets the cracked torrent a couple of months later.

I think ultimately the most effective anti-piracy measures are those which reward the customer for their purchase, because there is no way developers or publishers will be able to significantly punish a substantial number of pirates. The worse they make DRM, the more attractive the cracked version of the game becomes. At some point there will be a significant demand for the cracked version from legitimate customers who have purchased the game, but find it unplayable because of the DRM bullshit.

 

[SomeBoredGuy]

Great podcast, but could you possibly make it longer please?

 

[Ewyx]

That was a pretty awkward podcast. Granted, I don't listen to much of them, but compared to the only one I listened so far which was The Hater on AVclub, this is just... awkward. Like both of the guys didn't really think about the topic... a lot of silent breaks. Short statements like 'yeah', 'mhm'... etc. make it a bit slow and boring...

Beats most of the other new shows though.

 

[Baradiel]

I loved that, but there seemed to be a few too many awkward pauses.

Still, the background was funny, and the discussion was interesting.

 

[Alakaizer]

I would love to know whose game shelf that is around the 6:50 mark. I saw some of my all-time favorites there(If you know me, you know what they are), and it's always fun to find other people with similar tastes.

Captcha: Schriften enterit

 

[Atmos Duality]

Ironic. I've been, listening to a few other weekly gaming podcasts for months now.
Somehow, I doubt this would become a regular thing.

On the other hand, a periodic Escapist Q&A VOIP "Call-in" program could work out nicely.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well I love there are more things being done with Yahtzee but you guys need a better flow, there is alot of awkward pauses and talking bumps that really shouldn't be in a show.

Maybe just get some points down on paper and do a Q&A sort of thing, then cut together the good bits cuz I'm not sure Yahtzee works in a live stream recording, meant no disrespect but radio takes a Chatty McChat's Alot type person that will keep on rambling mindlessly even when there is nothing to say.

 

[veloper]

Weak sauce.
They're both just rambling and don't take a real position. Almost sounds like they never thought about these issues before.
This will work better if they put it on paper first and play by the script.

 

[Kroxile]

Yes!
A reason to come to the escapists on Monday!

To bad about Mikes show "Anthony saves the world".
Just proves that Lisa Folis is a Jinx!

She killed her own show and took mike's show with her; *****!

Wait what? You got a link to an article about Lisa Foiles?

I noticed she didn't update the past 2 weeks but figured she might just be taking a break like Alison did from EC.

 

[Astalano]

Nice conversation, although I think the title should be changed to: "Random Shit-Oh and DRM, Piracy and a mention of PC Gaming".

My perspective on PC gaming:

There are many advantages of PC gaming:

-Customization of your game experience. Not only in terms of parts for your PC, but also software as well as various gamepads, flight sticks, etc., which are popular and supported in terms of games. This allows for more genre types due to various input devices, from great RTS' to flight games.

-Better graphics and generally better experience on the technical side of things.

-Better gameplay experience with a mouse and keyboard usually.

-Mods.

-Better deals (looking at you steam).

-More variety of games. We can argue to the moon and back about this, but I would be right in the end. On the PC, not only do we get dumb action games, but also smarter, slower games like Arma 2 or Stalker, Risen (360 version doesn't count because it's just BAD).

-Ability to play all games ever released (mostly). A far cry from the little backwards compatibility of consoles.

-Emulators.

-Cheaper than console gaming in the long run. It can be more expensive or the same price, but that depends on how you like to game on PC. If you spend money on the latest hardware every year, then yes, it's going to be more expensive. If you wait for deals and get the most out of your hardware, it will be cheaper. Consoles have renting, but with PC gaming games are cheap and you get to own everything you pay for. If you want to rent, consoles are a better choice, but for the gaming enthusiast who likes to own all his games, PC is more preferrable.

-Best online support, better community (in terms of content and various forms of communication, not necessarilly in terms of maturity, although I would argue that PC gamers are generally more mature), better clan support, etc.

-Better for smaller developers.

-More money per game for developers.

-Insert other advantage here.

Disadvantage:

-Needs tinkering with and involvement. Generally you need to know a bit about computers, which I don't think PC devs handle right. What I would do is have a third party that promotes PC gaming by putting a disc/file in every physical/digital copy that covers all the steps of installing various hardware and what various hardware is. This means explaining what RAM is, what a CPU is, etc, the advantages of building your own rig, so that if one were to ever want to progress further into the more technical aspect of PC gaming and get the most out of it, they would have a great starting point. The PCGA should do this, but sadly, they're useless.

-Needs work on community aspect. Involving modders and having great online support is essential.

Market aspects:

PC games don't sell as well at launch. However, they sell better than consoles in the long run. This is just an aspect of the market. The only disadvantage is that it's not good for churning out sequel after sequel. A successful PC game (built with PC's in mind) will do better than 99% of console games because the demand is great for PC-focused games. So generally, if you make a great PC game, you can be sure that the market will usually respond well and your game will sell great and continue to sell great years after release, as the PC is mostly a very stable market with stable demand (mostly) for hardcore games, but PC users don't rush to buy on day 1, at least not the hardcore ones.

Usually you'll sell around 2-3 million in the first month if you're Blizzard for instance, and sell 10+ million over 5-10 years.

Piracy shows interest for your product. The more successful the game the more piracy (Starcraft), so it usually isn't a problem. Piracy may also indicate issues with your game or its distribution (piracy of Valve games in Russia, for instance).

PC mainstream gaming isn't dying, it's just that the developers that now make multiplatform games are being replaced by smaller and independent developers who are slowly growing in size and so, PC has become the breeding ground for a whole new generation of developers (in comparison to the LAUGHABLE market for smaller developers on consoles) that will supply future multiplatform and big budget games. You may see Frictional Games as the next Resident Evil type developer, while CD Projekt RED and GSC (The Witcher and Stalker) are two examples of developers that have already become very recognizable names in the PC industry.

These are my thoughts and observations.

 

[thenewprince]

Extremely Boring, you really need to work on your flow. You sound like you're talking in different rooms with no organization

 

[Pathologic]

This was pretty interesting. Oddly enough, given how prone to giving criticism Yahtzee is, he seems really touchy when Mikey brings up anything that could be taken as a shot at him. Then again, he's said many times that he's a bit of a misanthrope.

Mikey and Yahtzee are both interesting commentators in their own right, but I'm not sure they mesh particularly well. I think part of the problem is that they disagreed on a lot of issues, but don't feel comfortable enough with each other to actually argue for fear of offending the other. Maybe you could try pairing Yahtzee up with James from Extracredits? I'd love to hear them talk in real time... Extra Consideration is good, but I always wish I could hear them go back and forth in real-time so things sound less diplomatic and we get to hear them go a bit more in-depth.