When I thought I could live alone,
Cold to the core and solid to the bone,
I find myself weak and vulnerable,
And everything else insufferable.
But it is in this weakness that I know,
It is my strength that must grow,
For alone I live and die,
On no one I can rely.
Though it was solitude which I sought,
Loneliness was what I gained,
For so long and for nothing I have fought,
For nothing I'm now completely drained.
My little star lost behind the clouds,
My heart and soul lost behind unknown crowds,
Again in despair I sink,
Only hopelessness for me to drink.
But the world moves on, and so will I,
No time to mope and no time to cry,
I'll press on alone as I've always done,
Till my heart and I are finally one.
Monday, February 9, 2015
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Electronic Sports in Malaysia: as slow as our Internet connection
Another piece from work. This time I decided to just leave all the links in and remove the images; it is so much easier for me to just copy and paste the HTML code, but because Blogger keeps bugging out on the images and I can't be bothered to put them in a second time, they're out. They don't belong here in my fortress of text anyway. With that out of the way, here it is.
So e-sports is finally taking off in Malaysia.
With the launch of e-Sports Malaysia in late January, as well as the Selangor Cyber Games held in mid-December last year, it would seem that Malaysia as a whole is finally taking e-sports seriously. The latter being the first tourney event co-organized by a state government, and the former a registered body under the Sports Commission of Malaysia and the governing body of e-sports in the country. It would seem that, finally, pro gamers will be officially recognized as athletes, and be given the sort of respect and treatment befitting of our country’s representatives.
Now that we have a governing organization for e-sports that is registered under the Sports Commission, maybe we can finally kill the perception that games are a waste of life, and that gamers are wasting their lives away with a pointless pastime. Kids will finally be scolded for not turning on their PlayStations. Okay, maybe that’s being too optimistic, but still, the thought of the day where we will finally stop getting the condescending looks from the Gen X folks for a hobby drawing close is an exciting one. With that said, I couldn’t help but wonder: would our gaming scene have been better if this happened sooner?
The gaming scene is a global one. It may have started in South Korea, but as it spreads throughout the world, it became a movement on its own that waits for no one. To be a part of it, competitive gamers have to keep up with it, even if their local movement is trailing behind. While this may not be generally true for every competitive title, it quite certainly is for Dota 2 players. Arrow Gaming, the Malaysian team that was caught in a match-fixing scandal probably wouldn’t have gotten involved in it if eSM existed sooner. I think so for two reasons: first, is the fact that the players are underpaid, or so claim the two players “Lance” and “DDZ” at least. The second is the subpar treatment Arrow gamers are getting from their team management.
eSM has said that one of their Key Strategic Areas is the welfare of gamers, and had they existed sooner, perhaps the welfare of Arrow’s players would’ve been better taken care of, and the whole incident would've never happened. I should emphasize the word ‘perhaps’ because, as with anything else, nothing can be said for certain. But at least the existence of an e-sports governing body will reduce the likelihood of it occurring.
Back to the global e-sports movement. In an interview with Mushi during the Selangor Cyber Games in December last year, he has mentioned that he definitely wouldn’t be remaining in Malaysia as a professional gamer. His reason behind the decision is that overseas, the potential for progress as a professional gamer is much greater, and that the gaming scene locally just isn’t happening enough. Government support may be a good start, but it takes everyone’s involvement to help elevate the movement here.
This isn’t directly related to eSM per se, but when you think about it, there is an important relationship to be found. Going against the tide that is the stigmatization of video gamers is an immense undertaking. Close to impossible, even, especially when done as individuals or sparse groups of people. With the involvement of a governing body registered under the Sports Commission, however, things couldn’t be easier. It gives a banner for all gamers to unite under, and there is now a framework for people to follow in debunking the myth of a life wasted by playing video games. It is easier to withstand the unstoppable force that is the Gen X perception of video games when we have an immovable object to provide shelter, and eSM is that object we so desperately need.
But because eSM came to being now instead of earlier, local talent like Mushi and ChuaN – among many, many others – are playing for teams in China instead of our local teams. Now, we face the problem that is the gaming world’s equivalent of brain drain. As I mentioned, the gaming scene is like any other: a movement that waits for no one. Mushi and others like him have managed to keep up with the movement; to keep up with the times, as the rest of the country trails behind them. Now that we are picking up the pace, can we do so fast enough to catch up our players of international-level talent, so that they will represent a team that carries our flag? Can we, the local community, do enough to catch up to them, and convince them to play for Malaysia, now that we have the eSM to rally behind?
As a fellow gamer, I was never good enough to play many of the competitive titles on those levels. The only games I was good enough at to be competitive at are the Tekken series, excluding the -Tag games, which seems to be a niche title here. As such, I have given up my hopes of making a living out of it. For me, the eSM was too little, too late; the promises of an e-Sports Academy and the countering of a deeply rooted social stigma that the eSM provides would’ve been an option for me, if I hadn’t already finished my tertiary studies and found myself a job writing this rant. But for the younger gamers whose future have not been set in cement; for those fresh out of secondary school and SPM, the eSM is the best thing that could ever happen to them. It could’ve been the best thing that could ever happen to me, but thanks to its timing, it is the worst thing to happen to me, as I wallow in rage and envy, watching the younger generation make a living out of their hobby.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
This originally showed up here.
So e-sports is finally taking off in Malaysia.
With the launch of e-Sports Malaysia in late January, as well as the Selangor Cyber Games held in mid-December last year, it would seem that Malaysia as a whole is finally taking e-sports seriously. The latter being the first tourney event co-organized by a state government, and the former a registered body under the Sports Commission of Malaysia and the governing body of e-sports in the country. It would seem that, finally, pro gamers will be officially recognized as athletes, and be given the sort of respect and treatment befitting of our country’s representatives.
Now that we have a governing organization for e-sports that is registered under the Sports Commission, maybe we can finally kill the perception that games are a waste of life, and that gamers are wasting their lives away with a pointless pastime. Kids will finally be scolded for not turning on their PlayStations. Okay, maybe that’s being too optimistic, but still, the thought of the day where we will finally stop getting the condescending looks from the Gen X folks for a hobby drawing close is an exciting one. With that said, I couldn’t help but wonder: would our gaming scene have been better if this happened sooner?
The gaming scene is a global one. It may have started in South Korea, but as it spreads throughout the world, it became a movement on its own that waits for no one. To be a part of it, competitive gamers have to keep up with it, even if their local movement is trailing behind. While this may not be generally true for every competitive title, it quite certainly is for Dota 2 players. Arrow Gaming, the Malaysian team that was caught in a match-fixing scandal probably wouldn’t have gotten involved in it if eSM existed sooner. I think so for two reasons: first, is the fact that the players are underpaid, or so claim the two players “Lance” and “DDZ” at least. The second is the subpar treatment Arrow gamers are getting from their team management.
eSM has said that one of their Key Strategic Areas is the welfare of gamers, and had they existed sooner, perhaps the welfare of Arrow’s players would’ve been better taken care of, and the whole incident would've never happened. I should emphasize the word ‘perhaps’ because, as with anything else, nothing can be said for certain. But at least the existence of an e-sports governing body will reduce the likelihood of it occurring.
Back to the global e-sports movement. In an interview with Mushi during the Selangor Cyber Games in December last year, he has mentioned that he definitely wouldn’t be remaining in Malaysia as a professional gamer. His reason behind the decision is that overseas, the potential for progress as a professional gamer is much greater, and that the gaming scene locally just isn’t happening enough. Government support may be a good start, but it takes everyone’s involvement to help elevate the movement here.
This isn’t directly related to eSM per se, but when you think about it, there is an important relationship to be found. Going against the tide that is the stigmatization of video gamers is an immense undertaking. Close to impossible, even, especially when done as individuals or sparse groups of people. With the involvement of a governing body registered under the Sports Commission, however, things couldn’t be easier. It gives a banner for all gamers to unite under, and there is now a framework for people to follow in debunking the myth of a life wasted by playing video games. It is easier to withstand the unstoppable force that is the Gen X perception of video games when we have an immovable object to provide shelter, and eSM is that object we so desperately need.
But because eSM came to being now instead of earlier, local talent like Mushi and ChuaN – among many, many others – are playing for teams in China instead of our local teams. Now, we face the problem that is the gaming world’s equivalent of brain drain. As I mentioned, the gaming scene is like any other: a movement that waits for no one. Mushi and others like him have managed to keep up with the movement; to keep up with the times, as the rest of the country trails behind them. Now that we are picking up the pace, can we do so fast enough to catch up our players of international-level talent, so that they will represent a team that carries our flag? Can we, the local community, do enough to catch up to them, and convince them to play for Malaysia, now that we have the eSM to rally behind?
As a fellow gamer, I was never good enough to play many of the competitive titles on those levels. The only games I was good enough at to be competitive at are the Tekken series, excluding the -Tag games, which seems to be a niche title here. As such, I have given up my hopes of making a living out of it. For me, the eSM was too little, too late; the promises of an e-Sports Academy and the countering of a deeply rooted social stigma that the eSM provides would’ve been an option for me, if I hadn’t already finished my tertiary studies and found myself a job writing this rant. But for the younger gamers whose future have not been set in cement; for those fresh out of secondary school and SPM, the eSM is the best thing that could ever happen to them. It could’ve been the best thing that could ever happen to me, but thanks to its timing, it is the worst thing to happen to me, as I wallow in rage and envy, watching the younger generation make a living out of their hobby.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
This originally showed up here.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Hackers and the Internet
This is another piece I wrote for work. This one will be a little different from what I usually do, since contains a video and several links, most of which leads to articles on the site I work for. This is because taking a look at them is necessary to understand what I'm on about, and saves you the trouble of having to Google them yourself. With that, here it it.
With the recent hacking streak that is going on on our beloved Internet, it feels like as good a time as any to talk about hackers and hacktivism. Even more so with the recent Sony Pictures affair, as it sort of brings out both the greatest and the worst from these individuals or groups.
Hackers have been around for as long as the technological sense of security has. Since the Edward Snowden whistleblowing episode, they have been euphemistically referred to as security researchers. Even so, the euphemism may in fact contain more truth than intended. After all, it takes one who is knowledgeable in the field of cybersecurity to be a hacker.
I’ve come across this TED talk sometime late last year by a cybersecurity expert and self-professed hacker Keren Elazari, and I would like to echo what she has said. As much as the current hacking streak by GOP and the Lizard Squad has made the world feeling nauseous when we hear the word, it is what the Internet needs, and is not something we can do without. Ms. Elazari calls hackers the immune system of the information age, and I agree. Another way of seeing it is as a very aggressive form of customer feedback on the security end of things.
Think of Facebook, or any social networking platform. There might be things there that you want everyone to know, and some others that you don’t. Assuming you haven’t taken complete leave of your senses, it takes a hacker to expose what you intended to keep private, but it also takes a hacker to stop it from happening.
Back to the recent Sony Pictures affair. Personally, I found the whole thing to be absolutely hilarious, but I understand if anyone disagrees with me. I do not deny that the whole situation is unsightly, especially for those who are directly involved, but it happened because the victims weren’t taking Internet security seriously enough, and it needed to happen so that they do. Evidence to that is Anonymous’ tweet on the matter.
This will sound like victim blaming, and maybe it really is. But the point stands; when things like this happen despite being warned that it can happen, the only reasonable conclusion is that it was allowed to happen, intentionally or otherwise being quite beside the point.
At this point, I hope that you’ve listened to the TED talk I mentioned, because Ms. Elazari has elaborated on these points, and more, with really great examples. Also, one thing you will be able to infer from the talk is a phrase which I’m sure you’ve heard from one medium or another: Knowledge
is power. And in the age of information, this couldn’t be any truer.
Knowledge on the Internet is like money in real life. In fact, the right kind of knowledge can bring you money. That’s why data security is all the rage right now; trying to stop people from getting the kind of information that will get them money while making others lose money, and then some.
Of course, this is inevitable; hackers will continue to exist as long as computers and the Internet do, and no one can control what a hacker does with his or her discovery. Should they decide to be nice about their discovery, then the world learns of an exploitable loophole somewhere and works towards fixing it the easy way. Should the hacker choose the path of GOP and the Lizard Squad, then the world learns the hard way. Some may offer bug bounties, but nothing is stopping some hackers from doing it for the giggles, as some might claim to do.
Despite which way the world learns, if the people responsible for security take it seriously, then we are all better off. As for us nondescript users of the Internet, we can also avoid being collateral damage by taking a few simple steps. Not using passwords that are too simple is one which so many people fail to do that it beggars belief. There are some tools like biometric scanners – the likes of fingerprint scanners and retinal scanners – and the really complicated tools like this prototype smart keyboard, but personally I find these to be excessive, and may lock you out of your own data, for instance when you got a cut on your registered finger, or when your typing behavior changes over time. And of course, be mindful of what you put up in the Internet.
To sum everything up, hackers are here to stay. They will continue to expose the chinks in the Internet’s armor until the end of time or until all the weaknesses have been sealed, whichever comes first. There is nothing we can do about this short of denouncing technology entirely, which will also never happen. All we can do about it is take precautionary steps to not end up being collateral damage, and just watch the drama as it ensues.
And on that insensitive bombshell, adieu to y’all.
This originally showed up here.
With the recent hacking streak that is going on on our beloved Internet, it feels like as good a time as any to talk about hackers and hacktivism. Even more so with the recent Sony Pictures affair, as it sort of brings out both the greatest and the worst from these individuals or groups.
Hackers have been around for as long as the technological sense of security has. Since the Edward Snowden whistleblowing episode, they have been euphemistically referred to as security researchers. Even so, the euphemism may in fact contain more truth than intended. After all, it takes one who is knowledgeable in the field of cybersecurity to be a hacker.
I’ve come across this TED talk sometime late last year by a cybersecurity expert and self-professed hacker Keren Elazari, and I would like to echo what she has said. As much as the current hacking streak by GOP and the Lizard Squad has made the world feeling nauseous when we hear the word, it is what the Internet needs, and is not something we can do without. Ms. Elazari calls hackers the immune system of the information age, and I agree. Another way of seeing it is as a very aggressive form of customer feedback on the security end of things.
Think of Facebook, or any social networking platform. There might be things there that you want everyone to know, and some others that you don’t. Assuming you haven’t taken complete leave of your senses, it takes a hacker to expose what you intended to keep private, but it also takes a hacker to stop it from happening.
Back to the recent Sony Pictures affair. Personally, I found the whole thing to be absolutely hilarious, but I understand if anyone disagrees with me. I do not deny that the whole situation is unsightly, especially for those who are directly involved, but it happened because the victims weren’t taking Internet security seriously enough, and it needed to happen so that they do. Evidence to that is Anonymous’ tweet on the matter.
This will sound like victim blaming, and maybe it really is. But the point stands; when things like this happen despite being warned that it can happen, the only reasonable conclusion is that it was allowed to happen, intentionally or otherwise being quite beside the point.
At this point, I hope that you’ve listened to the TED talk I mentioned, because Ms. Elazari has elaborated on these points, and more, with really great examples. Also, one thing you will be able to infer from the talk is a phrase which I’m sure you’ve heard from one medium or another: Knowledge
is power. And in the age of information, this couldn’t be any truer.
Knowledge on the Internet is like money in real life. In fact, the right kind of knowledge can bring you money. That’s why data security is all the rage right now; trying to stop people from getting the kind of information that will get them money while making others lose money, and then some.
Of course, this is inevitable; hackers will continue to exist as long as computers and the Internet do, and no one can control what a hacker does with his or her discovery. Should they decide to be nice about their discovery, then the world learns of an exploitable loophole somewhere and works towards fixing it the easy way. Should the hacker choose the path of GOP and the Lizard Squad, then the world learns the hard way. Some may offer bug bounties, but nothing is stopping some hackers from doing it for the giggles, as some might claim to do.
Despite which way the world learns, if the people responsible for security take it seriously, then we are all better off. As for us nondescript users of the Internet, we can also avoid being collateral damage by taking a few simple steps. Not using passwords that are too simple is one which so many people fail to do that it beggars belief. There are some tools like biometric scanners – the likes of fingerprint scanners and retinal scanners – and the really complicated tools like this prototype smart keyboard, but personally I find these to be excessive, and may lock you out of your own data, for instance when you got a cut on your registered finger, or when your typing behavior changes over time. And of course, be mindful of what you put up in the Internet.
To sum everything up, hackers are here to stay. They will continue to expose the chinks in the Internet’s armor until the end of time or until all the weaknesses have been sealed, whichever comes first. There is nothing we can do about this short of denouncing technology entirely, which will also never happen. All we can do about it is take precautionary steps to not end up being collateral damage, and just watch the drama as it ensues.
And on that insensitive bombshell, adieu to y’all.
This originally showed up here.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Forbidden Emotion
When conditions appear most dire,
When you are weak and easily tire,
Know that I desire to light your fire,
And provide you with anything you require.
Perhaps you have seen me trying,
Perhaps my efforts remain unknown,
It is for your affection that I am vying,
A fact that can never be shown.
I knew from the start where I belong,
Nowhere near where I wish to be,
Fulfilling my desire would be wrong,
Despite how much you mean to me.
I realize I should keep my distance,
Despite my heart's relentless insistence,
As long as you know bliss, so will I,
My own selfish desires I will deny.
As I continue to writhe in despair,
Hiding my agony beyond compare,
I hope to lay my heart bare,
Without breaking our bond beyond repair.
If you are aware of my intent,
Confront me right away,
Allow me to avoid the foul portent,
Of again seeing the world,
In nothing but grey.
When you are weak and easily tire,
Know that I desire to light your fire,
And provide you with anything you require.
Perhaps you have seen me trying,
Perhaps my efforts remain unknown,
It is for your affection that I am vying,
A fact that can never be shown.
I knew from the start where I belong,
Nowhere near where I wish to be,
Fulfilling my desire would be wrong,
Despite how much you mean to me.
I realize I should keep my distance,
Despite my heart's relentless insistence,
As long as you know bliss, so will I,
My own selfish desires I will deny.
As I continue to writhe in despair,
Hiding my agony beyond compare,
I hope to lay my heart bare,
Without breaking our bond beyond repair.
If you are aware of my intent,
Confront me right away,
Allow me to avoid the foul portent,
Of again seeing the world,
In nothing but grey.
Saturday, November 15, 2014
The problem with game development today
Another piece that I wrote for work. This time, it's about something that resonates deeply within me, and thus my self-filter has failed to contain my hostile cynicism, which my editor has permitted to be published albeit with some toning down. With that, here it is.
The recent mess with Assassin's Creed Unity brings back memories of last year, and not good ones. Remember the massive launch flop that was Battlefield 4? Of course you do.
While Ubisoft is quickly gaining notoriety as the next EA – thanks to this year’s installment of Assassin’s Creed and new IP Watch Dogs – it has to be said that these two are not the only guilty ones when it comes to releasing unfinished or unpolished games and expect to not face backlash of any sort. And yet, no one seems to truly care. Sure, the players and, to some extent, the press will rage about it for a while, but when these game developers and publishers say something along the lines of "We're sorry, we'll fix them soon," everyone becomes silent and takes it like it was supposed to happen. Well, it's not, period. Games are supposed to be released playable. It defeats the purpose of selling a game for, say, Christmas, since the game is unplayable at that time and gamers have to wait for the team to come back from their holidays to – if you'd pardon the reference – play Fix It Felix. By doing that, they have just wasted their customers’ holiday, when the time they thought they would spend playing games could be used for many other activities.
Again, I must confess that I don't know every finest detail of how the process of developing games goes, but I can imagine it is much like almost every other industry; you have deadlines to be met, a budget to juggle and profits to be made. And when it comes to complex computer coding like those for video games, I’m sure that coming up with the basic structure, building it up and then completely iron out the bugs is not easy, to say the least. I am also not surprised if publishers expect developers to do the impossible that is doing all that under deadlines so tight they suffocate, knowing full well how difficult the process is.
All that said, as a paying customer, should I care about all this? Maybe I should, but if it's happening so often, I find it very hard to empathize with their plight. This is especially so when before the game was even announced we get bombarded with blinding hype and glowing impressions (though this is partly the gaming community's own doing) and that we should totally pre-order it now, shortly after a title is announced and way before the game is set to be released. Publishers want your money before they can give you something worth the amount you pay in return. At this rate, it is probably fair to say that one day they will want your money before they even make your game.
Sure, some of the big names can afford to do this – at least for the first few times – but when they start screwing up big time the way EA and Ubisoft are doing, even they won’t have the right to say “Hey, pay us now and one day, maybe you will get your money’s worth from us.” Not that they ever had the right to do so, only now we are less inclined to fall for it. Again, not that we should fall for it in the first place.
This is something only the video game industry can get away with. You don’t see artists release an album with half-tracks and then asking you to buy a second one that will patch your previous halves into full songs, nor do you get, say a water bottle without the cap, which will be delivered three weeks after you bought the bottle itself. Anything else that doesn’t work the moment you buy it will only mean an immediate refund or replacement with something that does. Video games don’t work that way. At least, not anymore.
Having lived for just shy of a quarter of a century, I can’t say I am old myself. But at least I am old enough to remember the days when games worked like everything else; when you fork out money, it is for something that works the way it should. In fact, anyone who is reading this now is probably old enough to remember those good old days where games were bug free on launch day, or if there were any, they were so obscure and difficult to reproduce that finding them actually became another objective after the actual game was completed. I’m afraid the same can’t be said for the future generations though.
With the advent of patches, every publisher has an excuse to release semi-completed games and get the full retail price’s worth for it. Don’t get me wrong, there are many games for which I am grateful to patches, most of them being Bethesda titles. Unfortunately, many others don’t make use of patches that way, which is the way it should be. This abuse of patching technology then gives rise to another problem: DLCs.
DLCs are a way for publishers to milk a title for more than it is worth. Sometimes, they release half-games in the pretense of a full game, then sell you the other half for more money than what you already paid. Or worse, they lock away content in a disc, which is only accessible after you pay to unlock said content. With that, DLCs came to be known as two things: the former form is called Downloadable Content, while the latter is known as Disk-Locked Content. Capcom is especially guilty of this – they deliberately lock characters in the game discs only to be unlocked by buying them (think Street Fighter x Tekken), or making small improvements to an existing game but selling that patch as a whole new game (Street Fighter IV, need I say more?).
Another method of milking a title for more than it's worth is microtransactions, also known as in-app purchases. This is fine in a free-to-play game, but should be illegal in retail titles. The idea behind microtransactions is simple: need more money to buy that game-changing item but also want to skip all the prerequisites for it? Pay up and you can have it, skipping parts of the game in the process. And so my problem with it is: why should a consumer be made to pay more so that they get to play less of the game?
Now that I’ve gotten all that out of the way, you will notice that Assassin’s Creed Unity is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the video game industry, at least from my perspective. With it now guilty of microtransactions and not being finished and polished on release, it is only a matter of time before they release DLCs for it. Even worse is the fact that many publishers today are not aiming to make games the old fashioned and proper way; they are aiming to release games that are just like Assassin’s Creed Unity, so that they can milk as much money as they can from gullible consumers. If this kind of fiasco happened once in a blue moon, then yes, we could say this was truly an unfortunate instance. But when so many are suffering from the same problem, then you know there is a problem that needs addressing.
So who needs to be addressing these problems? The publishers, for one; they are the ones who need to convince us their product is worth our money. That said we, as consumers, need to do our part as well in showing the publishers that if they want our money, they have to earn it the same way we earned ours. Instead of supporting the unscrupulous practice that is pre-orders, try waiting for the game to actually be out in the market. If it’s playable then, it’s fine to buy it and is well worth your money. If not, then either wait until it is or move on. DLCs are a little more complicated to deal with, but you can do better than buying every single one under the sun. Just take a look at the whole picture and decide if you are paying for something that should have been part of the game in the first place or something that actually adds value to the game. As for microtransactions, it is exceedingly simple: microtransactions and retail purchases are to be mutually exclusive. If you had to pay for a game, there can be no microtransactions. Likewise, if a game has microtransactions, you must not have paid to get said game.
Once again, the root of all evil is what makes the world go round, and this time around, it threatens to derail the gaming industry. It is up to us to keep things under control so that in the coming holiday seasons, we can hopefully see blockbuster titles that blow our minds without flopping like a fish out of water.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y'all.
This originally showed up here.
The recent mess with Assassin's Creed Unity brings back memories of last year, and not good ones. Remember the massive launch flop that was Battlefield 4? Of course you do.
While Ubisoft is quickly gaining notoriety as the next EA – thanks to this year’s installment of Assassin’s Creed and new IP Watch Dogs – it has to be said that these two are not the only guilty ones when it comes to releasing unfinished or unpolished games and expect to not face backlash of any sort. And yet, no one seems to truly care. Sure, the players and, to some extent, the press will rage about it for a while, but when these game developers and publishers say something along the lines of "We're sorry, we'll fix them soon," everyone becomes silent and takes it like it was supposed to happen. Well, it's not, period. Games are supposed to be released playable. It defeats the purpose of selling a game for, say, Christmas, since the game is unplayable at that time and gamers have to wait for the team to come back from their holidays to – if you'd pardon the reference – play Fix It Felix. By doing that, they have just wasted their customers’ holiday, when the time they thought they would spend playing games could be used for many other activities.
Again, I must confess that I don't know every finest detail of how the process of developing games goes, but I can imagine it is much like almost every other industry; you have deadlines to be met, a budget to juggle and profits to be made. And when it comes to complex computer coding like those for video games, I’m sure that coming up with the basic structure, building it up and then completely iron out the bugs is not easy, to say the least. I am also not surprised if publishers expect developers to do the impossible that is doing all that under deadlines so tight they suffocate, knowing full well how difficult the process is.
All that said, as a paying customer, should I care about all this? Maybe I should, but if it's happening so often, I find it very hard to empathize with their plight. This is especially so when before the game was even announced we get bombarded with blinding hype and glowing impressions (though this is partly the gaming community's own doing) and that we should totally pre-order it now, shortly after a title is announced and way before the game is set to be released. Publishers want your money before they can give you something worth the amount you pay in return. At this rate, it is probably fair to say that one day they will want your money before they even make your game.
Sure, some of the big names can afford to do this – at least for the first few times – but when they start screwing up big time the way EA and Ubisoft are doing, even they won’t have the right to say “Hey, pay us now and one day, maybe you will get your money’s worth from us.” Not that they ever had the right to do so, only now we are less inclined to fall for it. Again, not that we should fall for it in the first place.
This is something only the video game industry can get away with. You don’t see artists release an album with half-tracks and then asking you to buy a second one that will patch your previous halves into full songs, nor do you get, say a water bottle without the cap, which will be delivered three weeks after you bought the bottle itself. Anything else that doesn’t work the moment you buy it will only mean an immediate refund or replacement with something that does. Video games don’t work that way. At least, not anymore.
Having lived for just shy of a quarter of a century, I can’t say I am old myself. But at least I am old enough to remember the days when games worked like everything else; when you fork out money, it is for something that works the way it should. In fact, anyone who is reading this now is probably old enough to remember those good old days where games were bug free on launch day, or if there were any, they were so obscure and difficult to reproduce that finding them actually became another objective after the actual game was completed. I’m afraid the same can’t be said for the future generations though.
With the advent of patches, every publisher has an excuse to release semi-completed games and get the full retail price’s worth for it. Don’t get me wrong, there are many games for which I am grateful to patches, most of them being Bethesda titles. Unfortunately, many others don’t make use of patches that way, which is the way it should be. This abuse of patching technology then gives rise to another problem: DLCs.
DLCs are a way for publishers to milk a title for more than it is worth. Sometimes, they release half-games in the pretense of a full game, then sell you the other half for more money than what you already paid. Or worse, they lock away content in a disc, which is only accessible after you pay to unlock said content. With that, DLCs came to be known as two things: the former form is called Downloadable Content, while the latter is known as Disk-Locked Content. Capcom is especially guilty of this – they deliberately lock characters in the game discs only to be unlocked by buying them (think Street Fighter x Tekken), or making small improvements to an existing game but selling that patch as a whole new game (Street Fighter IV, need I say more?).
Another method of milking a title for more than it's worth is microtransactions, also known as in-app purchases. This is fine in a free-to-play game, but should be illegal in retail titles. The idea behind microtransactions is simple: need more money to buy that game-changing item but also want to skip all the prerequisites for it? Pay up and you can have it, skipping parts of the game in the process. And so my problem with it is: why should a consumer be made to pay more so that they get to play less of the game?
Now that I’ve gotten all that out of the way, you will notice that Assassin’s Creed Unity is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the video game industry, at least from my perspective. With it now guilty of microtransactions and not being finished and polished on release, it is only a matter of time before they release DLCs for it. Even worse is the fact that many publishers today are not aiming to make games the old fashioned and proper way; they are aiming to release games that are just like Assassin’s Creed Unity, so that they can milk as much money as they can from gullible consumers. If this kind of fiasco happened once in a blue moon, then yes, we could say this was truly an unfortunate instance. But when so many are suffering from the same problem, then you know there is a problem that needs addressing.
So who needs to be addressing these problems? The publishers, for one; they are the ones who need to convince us their product is worth our money. That said we, as consumers, need to do our part as well in showing the publishers that if they want our money, they have to earn it the same way we earned ours. Instead of supporting the unscrupulous practice that is pre-orders, try waiting for the game to actually be out in the market. If it’s playable then, it’s fine to buy it and is well worth your money. If not, then either wait until it is or move on. DLCs are a little more complicated to deal with, but you can do better than buying every single one under the sun. Just take a look at the whole picture and decide if you are paying for something that should have been part of the game in the first place or something that actually adds value to the game. As for microtransactions, it is exceedingly simple: microtransactions and retail purchases are to be mutually exclusive. If you had to pay for a game, there can be no microtransactions. Likewise, if a game has microtransactions, you must not have paid to get said game.
Once again, the root of all evil is what makes the world go round, and this time around, it threatens to derail the gaming industry. It is up to us to keep things under control so that in the coming holiday seasons, we can hopefully see blockbuster titles that blow our minds without flopping like a fish out of water.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y'all.
This originally showed up here.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Music streaming. Good? Bad? or Ugly?
So this is a piece I've written for work, and as such you will not get my usual word-fatalities, so to say, as well as the presence of images which do not belong in my fortress of text. It is also not something that I usually care for, considering there is no alternative for me to music which doesn't require constant internet connection. But it is something I guess some other people can relate to, and definitely something timely and relevant to the world today, so I thought I'd share it here as well. With that, here it is.
So Taylor Swift has decided to pull all but one of her songs off Spotify.
If you were a fan of hers, you would probably also know that she herself isn’t a fan of Spotify. In fact, she goes as far as to put Spotify in the same boat as piracy and file sharing when it comes to identifying the cause of the drastically shrinking album sales. She justifies this statement by saying:
I suppose it is understandable, since each album sold is worth considerably more than the same album streamed on Spotify. Let’s take some local numbers for the sake of a clearer picture. An album which you buy at the average records store would cost about RM50, to give it a ballpark figure. This is in contrast to each song streamed on Spotify, which will net the contributing artist 20 sen thereabouts. Of course, with such numbers, it would seem that by streaming an album, at least on Spotify, we are only giving the artists less than five percent of what the album is really worth. This all makes Ms. Swift’s point really something worth thinking about.
Spotify, on the other hand, says that the ‘per stream’ metrics is a highly flawed indication of their value to artists, and believes that their service is best for allowing music fans to enjoy more music than ever before in a legal way, which will benefit the lives of artists.
At this point, I should point out that I have no idea how the music industry works on the business side of things. However, as a fellow consumer, I would also like to present a factor not yet mentioned, and not just for the sake of throwing a wrench into the works. For a start, there are generally two types of music listeners, at least to my observation. The first listens to their favorite songs over and over until they are bored of them before moving on to a new batch of songs. The second piles up all the music they like into an infinitely long playlist, sets it to shuffle, and treats that like a radio; listening to whatever song is in the queue and generally moving along with the shuffled playlist. To keep things simple, let’s just refer to the first archetype as Arthur and the second as Belle.
So, from these archetypes, it would make sense for Arthur to buy albums so he could listen to the same songs over and over until he is ready to move on, while Belle would just subscribe to a music streaming service, set up her playlist and just listen to whatever song that happens to be playing at the time. But things are not always going to remain that way; Arthur might one day decide that buying a whole album for a single song in lossless quality is not worth it, and Belle may decide that by streaming music, she is paying more than what she actually gets, as she also only listens to a few songs from an entire album.
What I’m trying to say is, having a choice is always good for consumers. This would also mean that it would be a good idea for artists to give their fans choices. Besides, if Arthur wants to listen to a song badly enough but it’s not available for streaming on Spotify, he would probably just get a digital copy off a friend or the many Internet pirates. This might seem excessively thrifty of Arthur, but consider the fact that a 3-month subscription costs about the same as one album.
Spotify has said that an unnamed, real-life artist was earning US$425,000 – which would translate to about RM1.4 million – per month in royalties for a ‘global hit album’. While we don’t know if this number is achieved with the help of people who listen to music the way Arthur does, I can only imagine that the number could only be bigger if Arthur and his friends could get music online legally, instead of having to resort to what the industry hates the most.
Taylor Swift mentioned that she hopes other artists “don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue their art”. For a thrifty and stingy person such as myself, this sounds very much like a euphemism for
“Milk your work as much as humanly possible”, and no doubt they have every right to do so. But if that was indeed the goal, wouldn’t Coldplay’s method of delaying streaming releases work better, instead of not streaming altogether? After all, albums are sold by the hype of something being new and, of course, the devotion of fans. When the cake has been cooled from being out of the oven for too long, so will album sales. This is when the revenue from music streaming, as little as it may be per stream, start to matter, as every track streamed still nets the artist 20 sen, while no album sales will simply equate to no revenue.
In the end, the choice is up to the artists on how they want to release their music to the public. As we, the consumer public, will be affected by their choice, here’s hoping they make the right decisions and keep our options open. The root of all evil is, after all, what makes the world go round, and by keeping our options open, we are – in that metaphorical sense – given a choice on how we want to keep the world spinning.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
This originally showed up here.
So Taylor Swift has decided to pull all but one of her songs off Spotify.
If you were a fan of hers, you would probably also know that she herself isn’t a fan of Spotify. In fact, she goes as far as to put Spotify in the same boat as piracy and file sharing when it comes to identifying the cause of the drastically shrinking album sales. She justifies this statement by saying:
“Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is. I hope they don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.”It should also be mentioned at this point that Taylor Swift is specifically against ad-sponsored free services, which Spotify provides. Her discography is apparently still on streaming services like Beats Music and Google Play All Access, where beyond the artists’ radio stations – you have no control over what songs you get here – nothing else is available for free.
I suppose it is understandable, since each album sold is worth considerably more than the same album streamed on Spotify. Let’s take some local numbers for the sake of a clearer picture. An album which you buy at the average records store would cost about RM50, to give it a ballpark figure. This is in contrast to each song streamed on Spotify, which will net the contributing artist 20 sen thereabouts. Of course, with such numbers, it would seem that by streaming an album, at least on Spotify, we are only giving the artists less than five percent of what the album is really worth. This all makes Ms. Swift’s point really something worth thinking about.
Spotify, on the other hand, says that the ‘per stream’ metrics is a highly flawed indication of their value to artists, and believes that their service is best for allowing music fans to enjoy more music than ever before in a legal way, which will benefit the lives of artists.
At this point, I should point out that I have no idea how the music industry works on the business side of things. However, as a fellow consumer, I would also like to present a factor not yet mentioned, and not just for the sake of throwing a wrench into the works. For a start, there are generally two types of music listeners, at least to my observation. The first listens to their favorite songs over and over until they are bored of them before moving on to a new batch of songs. The second piles up all the music they like into an infinitely long playlist, sets it to shuffle, and treats that like a radio; listening to whatever song is in the queue and generally moving along with the shuffled playlist. To keep things simple, let’s just refer to the first archetype as Arthur and the second as Belle.
So, from these archetypes, it would make sense for Arthur to buy albums so he could listen to the same songs over and over until he is ready to move on, while Belle would just subscribe to a music streaming service, set up her playlist and just listen to whatever song that happens to be playing at the time. But things are not always going to remain that way; Arthur might one day decide that buying a whole album for a single song in lossless quality is not worth it, and Belle may decide that by streaming music, she is paying more than what she actually gets, as she also only listens to a few songs from an entire album.
What I’m trying to say is, having a choice is always good for consumers. This would also mean that it would be a good idea for artists to give their fans choices. Besides, if Arthur wants to listen to a song badly enough but it’s not available for streaming on Spotify, he would probably just get a digital copy off a friend or the many Internet pirates. This might seem excessively thrifty of Arthur, but consider the fact that a 3-month subscription costs about the same as one album.
Spotify has said that an unnamed, real-life artist was earning US$425,000 – which would translate to about RM1.4 million – per month in royalties for a ‘global hit album’. While we don’t know if this number is achieved with the help of people who listen to music the way Arthur does, I can only imagine that the number could only be bigger if Arthur and his friends could get music online legally, instead of having to resort to what the industry hates the most.
Taylor Swift mentioned that she hopes other artists “don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue their art”. For a thrifty and stingy person such as myself, this sounds very much like a euphemism for
“Milk your work as much as humanly possible”, and no doubt they have every right to do so. But if that was indeed the goal, wouldn’t Coldplay’s method of delaying streaming releases work better, instead of not streaming altogether? After all, albums are sold by the hype of something being new and, of course, the devotion of fans. When the cake has been cooled from being out of the oven for too long, so will album sales. This is when the revenue from music streaming, as little as it may be per stream, start to matter, as every track streamed still nets the artist 20 sen, while no album sales will simply equate to no revenue.
In the end, the choice is up to the artists on how they want to release their music to the public. As we, the consumer public, will be affected by their choice, here’s hoping they make the right decisions and keep our options open. The root of all evil is, after all, what makes the world go round, and by keeping our options open, we are – in that metaphorical sense – given a choice on how we want to keep the world spinning.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
This originally showed up here.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Truth is a bitter pill.
With the Gamergate movement being all the rage nowadays, I thought it would be a good idea – for my own sanity, if anything – that I contribute my two cents that no one wants or cares for. And with that, let me begin by saying this:
Humans are shallow.
It doesn’t matter how much you, I or anyone else tries to establish the notion that we are advanced beings in the animal kingdom, the fact remains that primal impulses still dictate our lives in one way or another. While most of them like the urge to eat, drink, breathe and sleep make sense because we’ll die without them, one doesn’t when you want to emphasize our supposed superiority over the rest of the animal kingdom, and that is the urge to procreate. That ensures the survival of the species, and as long as that instinct is part of our genes, we will always be shallow.
Take news for example. How do you draw the attention of people into motorsports, especially people with no interest in motorsports? Babes. How do you draw people’s attention to the launch of a new piece of computer hardware, when quite often people who aren’t nerd or geeks have less than absolutely no interest in them? Babes. In another field like, say, advertisements; how do you convince people to try your beer when it’s no secret that your beer tastes either like water or piss? Babes. What do you put on your advertisements or products to increase the chances of people seeing them and trying them out? You guessed it: babes.
What I’m saying is, sex sells. That’s why people are more likely to care about a lad or lass that was trotting about a street halfway across the globe in the nude than the local homicide.
Which brings me to my next point, and that is the fact that Anita Sarkeesian is a blithering idiot.
Now, I understand that there are many people rallying behind her so-called cause. I also admit that I don’t know what the hell she is up to now, nor do I bother to care. The fact remains is this: she was once – and maybe still is – against the way females are portrayed in videogames. So am I, but I realize a fact that she didn’t – or still doesn’t or refuses to accept – which is the point I was elaborating on above.
To sell videogames, people doing the sales and marketing have only one thing in mind and that is to make as much money as possible. That’s not wrong. That’s part of their job anyways. And to do that, the surefire way is to pull the primal impulse bait, and what better way to do it than sex. You can’t sell using food and drink because they could just buy the food and drink that they can actually eat and drink. You can’t sell via sleep either, since there is no alternative to actually going to sleep. And the world will end before breath is no longer free and hassle-free. So they go for sex. Sure, nothing beats the real thing (not that I have first-hand experience), but it is the only one that is not easily within reach, and where unless you have the real thing, no amount is ever enough (again, not that I actually have first-hand experience).
But I digress. So back to selling games. The men – or indeed women – in their suits tell the designers to put in muscly men and scantily dressed women to entice people to buy them. And of course, this strategy works perfectly. That’s why it’s been done over and over again. Rarely do you see developers, especially those with big names, go for some risk-taking and do something unorthodox, untested and unproven, because in the end if it doesn’t sell, it’s a complete flop no matter how well done the game is.
Take Clover Studios, for example; the small team of developers consisting of what was once Capcom’s finest. They decided since Capcom’s coffers were deeper than space, they would use some of it to just come up with the best games they can, no sales gimmicks or any of that shit. And they did; they came up with Viewtiful Joe, Okami and God Hand. The only scantily dressed woman was in God Hand, and she was in a denim miniskirt – she might as well be heavily armoured by today’s standards. All three games received critical acclaim. Success in every sense of the word, except financially. And so Clover Studios was shut down, and the three aces of Capcom scattered because they were denied their livelihood, which is to make the best games they possibly can instead of the best games that can possibly sell.
So yes, games sell because the people who want them to sell used the method that will not fail for as long as we have the primal instinct to reproduce. And instead of addressing this issue – not that it can be addressed anyway – this lady known as Anita Sarkeesian goes on beating about the bush talking about a problem that cannot be solved for as long as the root of all evil is what makes the world go round. Maybe, in the distant future where humans have evolved to be androgynous and asexual, then she may have a point. But until then, she makes about as much sense as those anti-vaccine advocates.
I suppose at this point I should mention that I have nothing against other people who have been negatively affected by this so-called Gamergate movement like Brianna Wu or Zoe Quinn or anyone else that were doxed and threatened with death, nor am I with or for the violent ‘retribution’ of Gamergate. I am also not saying that Anita Sarkeesian deserves all the death threats or anything. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if they are blithering idiots. That’s why all the anti-vaccine fools have not been – to quote Jeremy Clarkson on a different case – shot in front of their families. Nor has Somalia been nuked for all the pirates and up to 98% of people practicing female genital mutilation there (or so says Wikipedia, which cites a 2013 UNICEF report). So yes, everyone has a right to their opinion, even if they’re wrong.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
P.S.: I should mention also that these are my own views and I’m not saying any of this on behalf of anyone but myself. So if anyone’s going to get doxed or threatened with death for this it should be me and me alone. Not that it’s a likely scenario since, who the hell am I anyway?
Humans are shallow.
It doesn’t matter how much you, I or anyone else tries to establish the notion that we are advanced beings in the animal kingdom, the fact remains that primal impulses still dictate our lives in one way or another. While most of them like the urge to eat, drink, breathe and sleep make sense because we’ll die without them, one doesn’t when you want to emphasize our supposed superiority over the rest of the animal kingdom, and that is the urge to procreate. That ensures the survival of the species, and as long as that instinct is part of our genes, we will always be shallow.
Take news for example. How do you draw the attention of people into motorsports, especially people with no interest in motorsports? Babes. How do you draw people’s attention to the launch of a new piece of computer hardware, when quite often people who aren’t nerd or geeks have less than absolutely no interest in them? Babes. In another field like, say, advertisements; how do you convince people to try your beer when it’s no secret that your beer tastes either like water or piss? Babes. What do you put on your advertisements or products to increase the chances of people seeing them and trying them out? You guessed it: babes.
What I’m saying is, sex sells. That’s why people are more likely to care about a lad or lass that was trotting about a street halfway across the globe in the nude than the local homicide.
Which brings me to my next point, and that is the fact that Anita Sarkeesian is a blithering idiot.
Now, I understand that there are many people rallying behind her so-called cause. I also admit that I don’t know what the hell she is up to now, nor do I bother to care. The fact remains is this: she was once – and maybe still is – against the way females are portrayed in videogames. So am I, but I realize a fact that she didn’t – or still doesn’t or refuses to accept – which is the point I was elaborating on above.
To sell videogames, people doing the sales and marketing have only one thing in mind and that is to make as much money as possible. That’s not wrong. That’s part of their job anyways. And to do that, the surefire way is to pull the primal impulse bait, and what better way to do it than sex. You can’t sell using food and drink because they could just buy the food and drink that they can actually eat and drink. You can’t sell via sleep either, since there is no alternative to actually going to sleep. And the world will end before breath is no longer free and hassle-free. So they go for sex. Sure, nothing beats the real thing (not that I have first-hand experience), but it is the only one that is not easily within reach, and where unless you have the real thing, no amount is ever enough (again, not that I actually have first-hand experience).
But I digress. So back to selling games. The men – or indeed women – in their suits tell the designers to put in muscly men and scantily dressed women to entice people to buy them. And of course, this strategy works perfectly. That’s why it’s been done over and over again. Rarely do you see developers, especially those with big names, go for some risk-taking and do something unorthodox, untested and unproven, because in the end if it doesn’t sell, it’s a complete flop no matter how well done the game is.
Take Clover Studios, for example; the small team of developers consisting of what was once Capcom’s finest. They decided since Capcom’s coffers were deeper than space, they would use some of it to just come up with the best games they can, no sales gimmicks or any of that shit. And they did; they came up with Viewtiful Joe, Okami and God Hand. The only scantily dressed woman was in God Hand, and she was in a denim miniskirt – she might as well be heavily armoured by today’s standards. All three games received critical acclaim. Success in every sense of the word, except financially. And so Clover Studios was shut down, and the three aces of Capcom scattered because they were denied their livelihood, which is to make the best games they possibly can instead of the best games that can possibly sell.
So yes, games sell because the people who want them to sell used the method that will not fail for as long as we have the primal instinct to reproduce. And instead of addressing this issue – not that it can be addressed anyway – this lady known as Anita Sarkeesian goes on beating about the bush talking about a problem that cannot be solved for as long as the root of all evil is what makes the world go round. Maybe, in the distant future where humans have evolved to be androgynous and asexual, then she may have a point. But until then, she makes about as much sense as those anti-vaccine advocates.
I suppose at this point I should mention that I have nothing against other people who have been negatively affected by this so-called Gamergate movement like Brianna Wu or Zoe Quinn or anyone else that were doxed and threatened with death, nor am I with or for the violent ‘retribution’ of Gamergate. I am also not saying that Anita Sarkeesian deserves all the death threats or anything. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if they are blithering idiots. That’s why all the anti-vaccine fools have not been – to quote Jeremy Clarkson on a different case – shot in front of their families. Nor has Somalia been nuked for all the pirates and up to 98% of people practicing female genital mutilation there (or so says Wikipedia, which cites a 2013 UNICEF report). So yes, everyone has a right to their opinion, even if they’re wrong.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
P.S.: I should mention also that these are my own views and I’m not saying any of this on behalf of anyone but myself. So if anyone’s going to get doxed or threatened with death for this it should be me and me alone. Not that it’s a likely scenario since, who the hell am I anyway?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
