Modern Warfare 2 is out. I’ve shared my criticisms of the game and its creators in my news posts, but I have other thoughts and perspectives that I have yet to share.

The Price

Console games have been $60 for four years now, but that’s only because the platforms are controlled by two companies who agreed on standards. Although the PC platform has no such governing entities, most of this year’s major releases have adhered to the normal $50 price for standard editions (including Prototype, an Activision game), and some games have been even cheaper. Burnout Paradise, Bionic Commando, Street Fighter IV, and Red Faction Guerrilla launched at $40 on PC. With the market being stable and skewing toward cheaper games, $60 for the standard edition of a game is uncalled for, except by greed.

The Multiplayer

I admit that PC gaming could stand to be simpler and more accessible, but we shouldn’t let Activision’s PR blow the issue out of proportion: it isn’t that hard to find and join a server in a server browser. Regardless, there is no technical reason to choose one over the other, and this is a point that I think many people have failed to acknowledge: matchmaking and dedicated servers can co-exist. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Unreal Tournament 3, Left 4 Dead, and World in Conflict are examples of this. Infinity Ward and Activision’s motivator isn’t accessibility, it’s money. The closed ecosystem will not only enable them to sell maps to PC players, but it could also allow them to sell dedicated servers to players directly — such a move would be anti-competitive toward the third-party dedicated hosting services. They haven’t done this yet, of course, but it’s the next logical step in their mission to monetize multiplayer. It’s what their numerous decisions against PC culture have led me to fear.

The Scene

I haven’t seen the scene, and unless some of the things I discussed above change, I will probably never play it, but I have observed and considered the criticisms of others. I’m fine with this scene existing. It has a right to. Video games are products of collaboration, but they’re also products of creative expression; they are art. There’s good art, bad art, and art that we just don’t care for, but art deserves to exist and shouldn’t be stifled, and from this is where my issue with it stems. As I understand it, before the scene begins, players are asked if they want to skip it. I don’t know why this choice exists — whether it’s pressure from Activision, a compromise with the ESRB, or simply Infinity Ward being courteous — but this choice indicates uncertainty on someone’s part. If they’re including the scene, I would rather they commit.

Were I to play it, I’m sure I would enjoy Modern Warfare 2 , but I can’t endorse Infinity Ward and Activision’s decisions with my money. I wish I could be playing Modern Warfare 2 rather than writing this post, but, such as it is, here I am.

I commonly experience flashes of euphoria for which I have no account. What I’ve felt over the last several weeks, however, is something different. It’s a sustained state of contentment — something that I can account for. It’s a feeling of fullness, and it’s because of video games.

I am full because of Brutal Legend. This game was almost perfect, from its story, its humor, and Jack Black’s performance, to its RTS and driving systems, and even its side missions — but I did say almost. The rate at which new Solos unlocked disappointed me; I think it was poor design to have four at the beginning, four at the end, but none in the middle. Still, I loved this game. I bought it on release day, and I finished all the missions by the end of the next. I never do that.

I am full because of Defense Grid: The Awakening. Tower Defense is a genre that gets a lot of flack — and it’s true, there are a lot of bad games out there — but if there’s a game that the skeptics should play, it’s Defense Grid. Its difficulty curve is fair, and its challenge modes suit it for repeat play. It even has character, an uncharacteristic attribute for a Tower Defense game that isn’t based on a license.
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Choices breed indecision, therefore preventing indecision requires identifying and eliminating our choices. This is our boon, our burden, and our charge as PC gamers. We mull over choices such as which video card, which mouse, how many cores, and how many watts. Digital distribution’s increasing popularity has, despite its merits, introduced the choice of where do I buy? The default choice, for most of us, is Steam. We would be justified, but competition is important for an industry to thrive. We must not surrender our opportunity to choose, and we must not surrender to complacency. To consumers and businesses, complacency is a common enemy. As consumers we should act out of self-interest, but we should be mindful of when supporting competition is in our interest. We must do more than merely acknowledge competition — when it’s deserving, and when it’s to our advantage, we must also support it.
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The range of my writing has been a recent source of concern for me. I have looked at what others write about video games; I’ve looked at what is popular. I’ve considered writing news, reviews, and even analysis and predictions, but I have no affinity for any of it.

I don’t want to write about news. If news is to be a site’s bread and butter, its writers must obsess over and write about every minor occurrence: every collector’s edition, every screenshot, every rumor — anything tangentially related. Inevitably, the news writer is forced to betray their passions. I can’t let an information trickle dictate the direction of my writing.
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The PC is treated as a second-rate game platform. This is evidenced most strongly both by game publishers’ treatment of the PC versions of their multi-platform games as well as how the games press covers PC games whether they be multi-platform or exclusive. For roughly the last six years the PC has been perceived as being a dying platform. While some players have definitely shifted from PC to video game consoles during this same time frame, things aren’t that bad; the PC platform’s biggest problem is still the perception that gamers, game makers, and game journalists have of it. This problem, left to fester, has begun to have distinct effects on the way PC games are treated.

Publishers, when they even make a PC version of their game, don’t treat it as well as they do the console versions. Development of the PC version of multi-platform games is often outsourced to a third party, and the quality of the product suffers as a result. But it isn’t always a problem of outsourcing; sometimes developers are simply told to focus their foremost efforts on the console versions. Marketing of the PC version also takes a hit; it is not uncommon for the PC version of a game to be released weeks to months after the console versions. Rarely will the PC version even be mentioned in magazine and comic book ads, much less television adverts; it will just be tossed out and left up to word of mouth and the virtually non-existent retail spaces to sell it to people.
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It seems that the thing to do at the end of each year on sites like this is to write a series of wrap-ups. Game of The Year, retrospective reports, trends analysis. People also like to make predictions for the impending new year. I really do disdain things like holidays and imposing tradition, and while I honestly have very little sentiment for New Years, I do think it’s appropriate to acknowledge what has happened as long as the world insists on operating cyclically.

But I won’t. In fact, I tried to just now. I got half a dozen items into a list before I scrapped it. Deciding what’s universally important isn’t for me. I’m not sure who it’s for; the real enthusiast press doesn’t do a good job of it either. Much of what they say is very hype-driven, lazy and predictable. I won’t do that, though that may be what people really want.

I’m going to go finish riding the planet around a star now.

As I’m sure you’ve been conditioned to know, Spore was released this last Sunday, September 7th. I really wanted to play it on release day. Normally I don’t worry about this too much unless it is a game that I am especially excited for. If I recall correctly, the last game that I was determined to play on release day was The Orange Box in 2007. I downloaded it through Steam at midnight as soon as it became available. It was incredibly convenient and it made me happy to be a Steam customer. Things are not always this easy, however, especially when it comes to games published by Electronic Arts.

My experience in obtaining Spore inspired the message of this post. EA: I want to buy your games. Please make it easier on me.
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