(Author’s Note: Originally posted on February 2010.)
For those of you who remember, a while ago I made a post titled “No Dedicated Servers, No MW2 For Me” in which I talked about how dedicated servers were the lifeblood of the pc community (If you want to know why I think dedicated servers are great, then read that post). However, just as I suspected, this practice is starting to become more commonplace. The latest example being the upcoming Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight.
When I saw the announcement it felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me. The Command & Conquer series was one of those cornerstone franchises for pc and more especially for the Real-Time Strategy genre. How could they justify taking away not only dedicated server support but also LAN support? On top of that, you have to constantly be connected to the internet in order to play just the single player game.
Talk about killing a game…
Why suddenly take away LAN and dedicated support in the first place? You are talking about the bread and butter of the RTS franchise. You take it away for what? Player progression stats and levels? I don’t know about the majority of the pc community but I could care less about player progression stats and levels. I play the game because I love it and get satisfaction every time I do well. I don’t need a global stat chart to compare myself to everyone in the world. My favorite dedicated servers did that for me.
And what is this business with player levels? It sure as hell isn’t to show how skilled someone is. I can certainly attest to that.
My example being that a little while ago I purchased CoD 4: Modern Warfare and gave it a go. What I immediately hated about the game was the fact that I had to level up in order to unlock better weapons. Why the hell couldn’t they have been available to me in the first place? Instead, I was stuck with a submachine gun, a sniper rifle, and an M16a4. What really ticked me off was that the M16a4 only fired in a short burst which is absolutely stupid. They could at least have given me the option of single shot mode instead of burst fire. Talk about a useless weapon.
While playing the game, I continually felt like I was in middle school whenever I leveled up. It was as if I would do well, in school, and get a gold star which, in this case, would be a new weapon/perk/scope/gun design. The whole unlocking of the weapons was such a ludicrous concept and completely unnecessary. Unlocking perks and enhancements for your gun are perfectly fine but not unlocking weapons. It just looks to me like a desperate attempt to keep gamers playing in order to get the best weapon.
But to get back on topic, why can’t EA follow in Steam’s footsteps? At least Steam lets players go into an offline mode so you can still play the single player aspect of your game and even play via LAN. LAN gameplay, just like dedicated servers, is a large part of the pc community. It is why there are LAN parties to begin with and why siblings will buy multiple copies of the same game. By cutting that out, you are losing potential multiple sales per household and alienating those gamers who thrive on LAN parties.
Case-in-point would be when my two younger brothers, and myself, would buy three versions of the Warcraft games and just play each other via the LAN network. Back when I was younger me and a group of friends would get together several times a year and have LAN parties. Hell, I was just reminiscing about them with our own FozzyTheGamer just yesterday.
Now I’ve constantly asked myself why these developers are suddenly taking this route and I am left with two reasons. First of all would be money. The ability to keep track of how many people are playing is a statistic that companies need in order to determine whether their game is a success of not. It is essentially what happens at my store. It doesn’t matter how much product we will sell, what matters is our metrics. The whole focus of our company is metrics now which are extended warranties, loyalty reward cards, selling batteries, and getting people to sign up for the store credit card. It is absolutely ridiculous to worry about these things if you can’t get your products to sell. But worry about the metrics these companies do, because it is almost 100% profit on their part.
The other reason developers are taking these steps is to try and combat piracy. While Modern Warfare 2 made an obscene amount of money it was also illegally downloaded the most of any other game in a very short time. According to TorrentFreak, Modern Warfare 2 was downloaded 4.1 million times within the first two months. Talk about a ton of potential sales lost to piracy. Which is why we will probably see more games go this route of having to constantly be connected to the internet.
So what will you do when your internet goes down for some reason beyond your control? You won’t be able to play your video games if they need a connection in the first place.
Of course, what makes this ludicrous enough is that this announcement follows in the footsteps of all the games that no longer have online server support from EA. For crying out loud they dropped support for Madden 09! The game has been out for not even two years (the game was released in August of 08) and they already dropped online support for it! Seriously, if EA is this fickle when it comes to online support why would anyone want to continue buying their games?
At least with dedicated server support we would still be able to play our favorite games.
But not only did EA cut its support for a slew of games but Microsoft will cut off all Xbox Live support for its original Xbox on April 15. So my sympathies go out to everyone who still played their original Xboxes. It really does suck.
So what will happen to all those C&C 4 fans when EA decides to cut support two years down the road? Well then you guys will be out of luck and unable to even play the single player campaign. Once the cord is cut, you will be sunk. It is as simple as that. Which is why this direction that EA is taking is absolutely ridiculous. I will never buy a game in which the single player campaign is reliant on you having an internet connection.
Once again I find myself boycotting another game just like I did Modern Warfare 2 and Bioshock 2. It really is sad. But hey, I am not going to buy any game that will not support dedicated servers. Frankly, I don’t see why the developers can’t just allow players to choose between the two. Release the game with dedicated server support alongside with the stupid leveling bs they want to give us. That way the player will have a choice.
So once again, I urge the pc community to boycott this game. Don’t pirate the game because it makes things worse. Instead take that money, which you would have spent on the game, and spend it on a game that will support dedicated servers and allow you to play the single player campaign without an internet connection.
Thankfully, there are two other great RTS franchises that are still loyal to its fanbase; the Total War and Civilization series. The Total War series thrives on both the single player and multiplayer aspects and there have been no plans to change it. Then with the recent announcement of Civilization V in the works, and coming out this fall, we have another RTS game that will more than deserve our money (check out my blog post about how excited I am about Civ V).
Forget about the petitions and all that. Boycott the game and hurt them where it will make the most impact; their wallets. But of course the majority of the pc community needs to boycott this game for it to even make some kind of impact on the companies. Piracy is not the answer boycotting is.
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