This isn’t going to be an Angry Internet Man rant. I don’t have the energy to just place a few hundred words of anger on this page. Instead I’m going to brainstorm and try to get to the bottom of this, and of course, I’m going to succeed where the corporations can’t or won’t. I’m going to solve the problems of Piracy and DRM. I’ve got a few ideas on the subject, things that will help combat this vicious cycle that’s just perpetuating both sides. Bear with me and I’m sure something insightful will come at the end of it.

Here is the current state of affairs as I see it; games get pirated. This means, at least in the game publisher’s eyes, that they are losing sales. Which in turn means that they’re not getting the money they feel they are deserved and thus they are taking steps to prevent piracy. DRM is born, and piracy all but ignores it, which means the people to suffer from the draconian measures are the paying customers. If you were to get metaphorical about this, DRM would be the police state rising out of fear of an violent (?) underground movement. The movement isn’t affected, but the civilians are.

The main problem with DRM is that it doesn’t work. Games like Spore which contain some of the most extreme DRM yet seen are pirated the day they are released, and so it does absolutely nothing to even stem the tide of piracy. The result of this, of course, is that the customers are left with a product that is inferior to the pirate’s copy. So, instead of DRM, game publishers need something else to fight back piracy. As I said, this isn’t going to be an angry rant, so hopefully I can write something constructive.

As I see it, there are two ways to avoid piracy. I’m going to use an example for each, as I feel they have, or would have, worked had it not been for certain.. reasons. Just before I start, I’m going to exclusively mark DRM as the draconian install limit/one account only stuff that is most frustrating to customers. Things like cd-keys and disc checks I see as exempt, at least in the broader scope of things.

The first way to avoid piracy is easily the most risky. Basically, you trust your customers. You make a point that you’re giving them a product without any of the draconian measures they’ve had to put up with, and you hope that the people who want to play your game are decent human beings. Yes, your game will still be pirated, but you won’t lose any customers, or even have people boycotting your products because of issues not present in the game. World of Goo is a perfect example of this; it was released with absolutely no DRM, and yet it wasn’t, and hasn’t (to the best of my knowledge) been pirated.

The second, and probably much more sure-fire way to avoid piracy is to make your product rely on interaction with your customers. This sounds a little vague, so I’ll try to explain it a bit. In Spore, for instance, the cleverness of the game revolved around seeing other people’s creations in your game. So you require a cd-key or something so that paying customers can make accounts, then share around the stuff. The pirates get an inferior game out of it, and your paying customers feel their money is justified. While this requires a bit of DRM, I don’t see this as obtrusive or annoying, and it would definitely feel like I’m not being shafted for paying for a product.

Valve is also a good example of this, although I suspect there is a lot more going on behind the scenes of Steam to stop pirates being able to play their games online. Something like Team Fortress 2 and the upcoming Left 4 Dead are entirely reliant on multiplayer, so a pirated copy is all but useless. So again, the paying customer is king.

Of course this doesn’t work for all games, specifically single player titles where user content and interaction is all but impossible. For that, you’ll probably have to rely on the trust factor, or perhaps you can provide something like extra content post release for those who registered their game with you, or some such thing. None of these are utopian, but merely practical. Yes, requiring an internet connection for some of these is annoying, but they are the simplest ways I can see to combat piracy without resorting to crippling your product for no purpose.

So there, my points are laid out, and while I doubt we’ll see it come to fruition, I’d hope that we see more expamples like this come into play, rather than relying on useless and frustrating third party ’support’ which just makes those who pay for your game get angry.

I got Fallout 3 today, and I’ve been playing it for about 5 hours straight. The one main thing I can come away with is that the VATS system is perhaps the most fun I’ve ever had in an RPG. It’s what has grown out of Turn Based Games. It’s taking what was good about those systems (being able to number crunch and strategise without being hassled) and given it a rather pretty, and gruesome, face.

A lot of critisicm has been levelled at Fallout 3, or perhaps mostly levelled at Bethesda, for daring to reuse an engine. Yes, there is still a bit of that awkwardness that was present in Oblivion, but it isn’t nearly so strong here as it was there. People look a little less like jaundiced lepers and a bit more like… people. And the addition of actual facial hair options is very welcome. Because I love facial hair.

The voice acting has improved quite considerably it would seem, and there are even some quite well done set pieces, all within the first hour or so of play. There are a few niggles, but I can easily ignore them because I can punch people’s arms off. I’ve gone the quirky route and made a uppercut throwing, right hook pounding boxer rather than aim for guns. Inevitably, I have had to use a few, but only out of necessity, and only to keep me alive before I whip out my knuckle dusters and start the dismemberment. Ghouls, in particular, get punched rather well.

Also, rather cleverly, it seems to be having rather brilliant flexibility in the story line. Beware, there is a few spoilers in the next paragraph, but nothing you haven’t already seen in trailers.

The whole ‘blowing up megaton’ quest chain I’ve bypassed entirely. I think murdering an entire city is a rather evil thing to do, so I told the sherriff with the cool hat that Burke was a berk, and then we went over there to sort him out proper like. So after a long conversation with the smarmy bastard, the Sherriff convinced him to come to the jail. However, as soon as the sheriff turned his back Burke drew a silenced pistol and shot him down. Aghast, I whipped out my baseball bat and beat in Burke’s skull.

Wonderfully, this left me with two rather cool looking blokes to pillage from, and this ended with me having the awesome shades and hat combo that you see above. And who said that being a nice guy doesn’t get you good rewards?

I was reading an article on the theory of Far Cry 2’s ’slow burn’, which is the idea that it takes a while to get going, but once it does it’s rather brilliant. While this may be true of some people, I found it was rather gripping throughout, from the rather shockingly subdued taxi ride into the country to the various open missions you start out doing. Yes it doesn’t lead you by the hand, but since I always play my games off the beaten path, this really didn’t trouble me. I sought out the Silenced MP5, and went off to do my thing.

There was one point in that article, however, that was very true. Far Cry 2 provides you a platform to play, rather than an experience. It gives you all the tools, but doesn’t tell you how to use them. this, coupled with an incredibly visceral and beautiful world gives you the oppurtunity for some truly memorable, and unscripted, events within the game world. What follows are perhaps my favourite five so far. I’m going to order them, but it’s quite likely that tomorrow I’ll look back and think I prefer number 4 to number 1, or whatever. So just take them as they are. Hell, I’ll just alphabetise them.

A) Accidental Fires

This has happened far too many times to count as just one event, but each time is more hilarious than the last. The Far Cry 2 fire mechanics are utterly astonishing, with the fire being subject to wind, fuel and location. Watching the wayward grenade set an entire field on fire is both wonderfully beautiful and horribly guilty. You just meant to send some Africans to an early grave and instead you’re destroying nature. Shocking.

B) Poor Quarbani

My first buddy was Quarbani. I could never remember his actual nationality, so I just imagined he was a ghurka, because he was a bit nuts. But he was actually a very well written character; he was principled to a fault, and while a little cold, you could see he appreciated the work we did together. I was always happy to take ten minutes out of my drive to a mission to see what he wanted, so it came as a huge shock when we were trying to take some gold from the UFLL and it all went tits up.

I’m not exactly sure what happened, maybe it was an errant grenade, maybe just one too many bullets flying his way, but Quarbani went down. He popped a flare, letting me know what had happened. With a quick check of my syrette (Far Cry 2’s health kits, essentially) count I saw I had two left, more than enough. So I want over, not really worried, and plunged it into his shoulder. His hand gestured to me; he needed more. I started to look a bit panicked, so I plunged my second, and last, syrette into his shoulder. Again, the gesture. He needed more.

This was perhaps my most emotional moment in a game so far. Here was this man, who I’d been playing along side for about 10 hours, and he was about to die because I hadn’t thought to scout for extra medicine before coming to save him. Feeling awful, I pulled out my pistol. He grabbed the barrel and shoved it under his chin, his eyes focused on me. As I pulled the trigger the camera looked away, and when I looked back he was gone.

C) Muddy Waters

Even though it is Africa, there is plenty of water in Far Cry 2. It’s not at all clean, and as soon as you slip below the surface you can barely see anything but your hands. So when I drove my car (accidentally) off a cliff and into a lake, I was a little worried. The car barrel rolled in mid air, so I had no idea which was the surface was. I managed to make it out of the car alright, but after a few seconds of frantic swimming about I realised I didn’t know how to get more air.

After a moment of contemplation, I slowly moved my view around, trying to ignore the flashes of red as my lungs began to burn. Suddenly I saw a faint circle of light; the sun. A quick swim to the surface and I managed to suck in a big lungful of air. While I wasn’t hurt by the encounter, it did leave me a little rattled.

D) The Wild Card

I’m playing as Josip, a 48 year old Albanian bloke, because old guys are awesome, and he also has an incredible moustache. It also makes it that much cooler when I wandering around town and I hear the following exchange.

“Karl.. did you hear there were pirhanas in the water in some regions?”

“It’s not the pirhanas you need to worry about. It’s that nutter who’s been running around butchering our men.”

“What? Who’s that?” I slowly walk over to them, and one turns to see me.

“Shit, don’t look now.”

“What? Is that-… oh, shit.”

Yes, that was in the game. Yes, I not feel like a complete badass.

E) Die Harder

Far Cry 2 is nothing if not immersive. When you get low on health, you have to perform ‘battlefield surgery’. That means pulling or fixing whatever is wrong with you at the time. Usually it’s grabbing a pair of pliers and pulling a bullet out of your arm/leg/ankle, but sometimes it’s a little bit more brutal than that. While I’d gotten used to the whole bullet thing, seeing my character pulle a nail that was lodged between two fingers was pretty gruesome.

But not nearly as much as when I got shot in my forearm. He held it up to see, and the bullet had compressed on his bone, leaving it lodged in the surface of his arm. I expected to see the pliers, but instead he just moved his arm just under the screen and after a few moments of gut-wrenching sounds he brought the arm back into view, bullet removed. Then the bullet was spat away from the screen. Yes, that’s right, he removed it with his teeth. I think that trumps any action hero, ever.

So those are my favourite five things at the moment, but it’s a pretty fluid list. It’s sure to change soon.. in fact I better get back to the game.