F**k off you b*****d

[Bryce]

The most ever disturbing things are protections like "You need an internet connection to activate blablabla"

Get used to it. Judging by statements from Microsoft / Sony / EA etc, they intend making Games on DVD and playing without an internet connection a thing of the past.

Bryce.

[robcfg]

And we have better things of the past to play with... 


I've been working for almost 13 years now making computer games, and I'm the first one to be pissed off about all the 'always connected' drm.


Most of the games I've bought recently are either indie games (most of them from humble bundles) or games for our old machines.


I won't tolerate such invasion of my privacy, and the fact that they are calling us thieves by behaving that way. So, for me, the can GFO big time! And if I get bored, I'll do my own games, thank you.

[TFM]

Damn right!

[db6128]

I know you are very insisting in your POV. However not all software companies are the same. And for companies like Ariolasoft the only thing that did count was copy-protection and the boxing of a game. As soon they sold their crap, everybody saw that most of the games were crap.

Ah, we both like our respective POVs a lot. I'm certainly not denying that this could have happened, but I struggle to believe that it was the norm to have a schedule wherein things other than the game itself took most of the developing time, at least back in the CPC's era. Perhaps this indicates that I'm unrealistically idealistic at heart, if someone can provide evidence that it was the case! Citations even for single games would be welcome. As for "Ariolasoft", all I can do is emit Beavis and Butthead–style laughter at that name...

Get used to it. Judging by statements from Microsoft / Sony / EA etc, they intend making Games on DVD and playing without an internet connection a thing of the past.

And making me ever less likely to get any new consoles. Feeling that the Wii doesn't really count as a current-generation console for anything other than family-pacifying shovelware, I was considering getting a 360 many years late, but am I really missing that much? I'm not a big gamer, am fine with a few games, most of which are for older consoles or are available on the Wii, and certainly don't want to support the way the industry seems like it might be going. Just as in music, I'm more interested in going back in time than forward...

[Bryce]

It will also mean that there will never be a retro scene for consoles from the PS4 onwards. As soon as the server support dis-continues for a console, it's then a computer with no games - If I wanted that I'd buy myself an Atari Jaguar

Bryce.

[robcfg]

Either that or we could have lots of fun making a pirate server for those consoles... 


Hey! There are pirate WoW servers....

[Gryzor]

After getting bored with Microsoft's anti-piracy measures I have abandoned my 360. Their loss.


I only opened a Steam account very recently to buy Anomaly 2 (the sequel to my favorite defense game), but I'll be downloading the cracked version as soon as it gets out. Ridiculous...

[ralferoo]

Sorry for the late reply, I managed to miss this thread until it popped up again in the recent posts list..

We occasionally hear sob stories of how these poor programers were only allowed 2-3 weeks or days to write or port a program for/to the CPC, yet they seem to have devoted a great deal of that time to writing copy protection schemes or rude messages into the program.

Just think how much better the games could have been if they had concentrated on improving the game instead of writing this other nonsense.

Were protection schemes written by the game authors themselves at that point?

The copy protection was generally done by someone other than the game author. A friend of mine started in the games industry by writing copy protection, and would typically just be given several finished games per week to add protection to and I think he said that he often needed to have a turn around time of less than 24 hours. I'm sure he's probably not proud of those messages now, but he was certainly profilic back in the day when there was unused space and there's even a page dedicated to some of his longer messages: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/equinox/eggs/stuart_middleton.php

Anyway, that was the start of his career. He soon moved on to writing games himself, and I'm sure you all recognise his work - he did all the coding for the GX4000 Pang port. So, I'm sure you can let him off any stupid messages he wrote when he'd just left school and was suddenly doing his dream job!

[ralferoo]

Get used to it. Judging by statements from Microsoft / Sony / EA etc, they intend making Games on DVD and playing without an internet connection a thing of the past.

Sony at least have officially confirmed that there is definitely a blu-ray drive in the PS4: http://uk.playstation.com/media/7ngkAGoJ/PlayStation4_Specification.pdf

[Bryce]

Sony at least have officially confirmed that there is definitely a blu-ray drive in the PS4: http://uk.playstation.com/media/7ngkAGoJ/PlayStation4_Specification.pdf

That's there so that you can watch a movie while you're waiting for their crap server to come back online YET AGAIN!

Bryce.

[MaV]

I'm sure he's probably not proud of those messages now, ...

Or in other words this is another case of "he was young and needed the money."