DRM: A Tale of two Publishers
To quote Cool Hand Luke "What we have here is a failure to communicate". On one hand you have Blizzard on the record recognizing that DRM in video games is a "losing battle". Many gamers can readily get behind that idea; we know that restrictive copy protection does nothing to stop piracy and only serves to harm legitimate customers by restricting their use. Blizzard has recognized that its better to offer a valid and compelling reason to buy is what will put a dent in piracy. Or maybe they realized that people will copy, so build a business model around that. Frank Pearce from Blizzard explains:
“If we’ve done our job right and implemented Battle.net in a great way people will want to be connected while they’re playing the single player campaign so they can stay connected to their friends on Battle.net and earn the achievements on Battle.net. The best approach from our perspective is to make sure that you’ve got a full-featured platform that people want to play on, where their friends are, where the community is. That’s a battle that we have a chance in. If you start talking about DRM and different technologies to try to manage it, it’s really a losing battle for us..”
On the other hand, it is just depressing; Namco Bandai's Olivier Comte sees Ubisoft's always connected DRM as a "good strategy". It's a good strategy if you want to prevent your paying customers from playing their video games that is. Ubisoft has had nothing but problems with their "always on" DRM and it is not a road that should be taken for any video game.
Videogame developers need to realize that onerous DRM does nothing to prevent piracy and only adds to the cost of the game and pisses off people who actually buy. They need to realize that people are going to copy and there is nothing they can do about it. Change your business models and/or provide solid reasons for your potential customers to go out and buy your game. Include in-depth matchmaking, or social tools to stay in touch with friends. Treat your customers like people and they will return the favor.
Official: Starcraft Delayed till 2010
From the DUH department:
In a Yahoo business report about Activision, it was revealed that Starcraft II would be delayed until 2010. This is another list of hotly anticipated games that are getting pushed back; Bioshock 2, the new Splinter Cell: Conviction, Dark Void and Red Steel 2. I wonder if I can still get into the beta...
Blizzard wants you to think that the delay is because Battle.net needs to be upgraded first. I guess the whole Starcraft 2 needing to be constantly connected to the internet is a big reason they need the Battle.net upgrade first.
“Today we announced that StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will not be ready for release by the end of 2009. Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game. The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service.”
To sum it up: this sucks! I am a huge StarCraft fan and I was looking forward to being able to play SC2. I wasn't taking totally by surprise though, since this IS Blizzard; I am hoping for at least an early 2011 release.
Starcraft II: No Lan and Tech tree revealed
Well, in a very surprsing move, it seems that Blizzard has confirmed that there is NO LAN in Starcraft II. This was confirmed in a interview with Rob Pardo, the senior VP of game design at Blizzard Entertainment. Rob Pardo stated that:
“we don’t have any plans to support LAN,” he said and clarified “we will not support it.” The only multiplayer available will be on Battle.net.
Blizzard dropped LAN support for Starcraft II because they will be incorporating unknown features into Battle.net that will better serve their customers. I see it as a way for Blizzard to try and crack down HARD on piracy. So instead of being able to pirate and play the LAN mode over the internet with hamachi (or at a friends house); you will need a valid key to play anything. That is exactly the route that Company of Heroes took. When the game first came out you only needed an account (tied to a valid cd key) to play multilayer and pirates played over Hamachi. When Opposing Fronts came out, Relic changed everything so you had to sign in to do ANYTHING (single player, lan, etc).
No LAN in Starcraft II has fans up in arms and somebody started a petition (worthless since it doesn't even verify your email). I figure that no lan in Starcraft II isn't such a bad thing. Yes it sucks when you go to a friends house, and the port forwarding might be a bitch. It does also suck for all of the LAN Centers out there; I know that trying to get ports forwarded for 24 machines is a PITA.
On the flipside of the no lan for Starcraft II is the fact that the tech trees have been posted online! (Thanks to Giant Bomb). Even though the beta for Starcraft II is a few months off, you can start studying up the tech trees to prepare to kick some ass. Here are the screenshots of the Protoss, Terran and Zerg Starcraft II tech trees:
Starcraft II Protoss Tech Tree
Starcraft II Terran Tech Tree
Starcraft II Zerg Tech Tree