5 Innovative Ways the Gaming Industry is Screwing You
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With any exciting and new industry, there are all sorts of previously unheard-of ways to screw the customer. Video games are no different. As the technology changes, the rules start to get blurry, and publishers are eager to see just how much they can get away with. These five brazen attempts to screw over gamers gives us a glimpse of what could be a very annoying future: #5.
Battlefield: Bad Company Sells Upgrades For Real-World Money
The Battlefield games have, for several years now, been known for the massive scale and depth of their multiplayer action. In non-nerdspeak: There are lots of people online, that have to use teamwork to get anything done. Oh, one minor thing. There's a regular version of the game, and a "gold" version that isn't made of gold, but does have some extra guns available.
So what's the problem?
But, hey, that's capitalism, right? And after all, on the regular version if you reach the highest level the new guns open up anyway.
To call this an ominous development is a huge understatement. EA has said this is a marketing experiment that they will continue, should they find it profitable. Fans aren't happy:
Real-life Equivalent:
#4.
Blizzard's Warden Client Is Watching
Blizzard Entertainment is well known for its nine-million-plus World of Warcraft gamers, along with millions still playing Starcraft and Diablo II. Unfortunately, there are always some bad apples in the bunch who want to cheat at a computer game and really, that's one of the most pathetic things a person can do in this life. So in an attempt to end cheating, Blizzard Entertainment set up its servers so that online games would automatically download a client that scans your computer to ensure that you aren't using cheating programs. So what's the problem?Take a look at this piece of the EULA agreement that was added after all the hype, complaining and lawsuit threats reached their peak. Basically it allows Blizzard to scan your computer and ... "... COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO BLIZZARD, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM WAS DETECTED; AND/OR (b) EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER THIS AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO THE USER ..."
Although there is no "actual" evidence that Blizzard has done anything with our personal information, this is exactly the kind of thing people are pressing in courts to be considered illegal. Regardless of whether Blizzard is a "trustworthy" company, giving that sort of information-gathering power to a company is dangerous the moment an employee decides that he is underpaid and wants to make a few "changes" to the client that we are forced to keep on our computer.
Real-life Equivalent:
#3.
Activision Fakes Its Commercials
The visuals were set up specifically so that they appeared to be gameplay (playing out from a first-person perspective, just as the games do). Keep in mind that this was a time when hardly anyone knew what the Xbox 360 was capable of, so they would believe just about anything. Angry Xbox 360 owners were rather upset to find that the graphics, while better than any previous Call of Duty game, were absolutely terrible in comparison to those shown in the TV commercial:
It's common for publishers to feature cutscenes instead of gameplay in their ads, but Activision admitted that the whole thing had been produced purely for the commercial. This created enough controversy in the UK that the Advertising Standards Authority forced Activision to pull these ads from British television entirely.
Real-life Equivalent:
And selling you this:
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In other words, the client can (and will) scan your entire computer looking for a program that seems "unauthorized," and reports back to Blizzard on what it finds. It is never stated whether the client considers your passwords, credit card numbers, web history or email addresses to be "unauthorized" so we're forced to assume that is does.
Activision developed and released several commercials that displayed the new Call of Duty in all its high-resolution glory. And to make it look extra good, they created a pre-rendered sequence that, as it turned out, looked far better than the actual game. They showed this in the ads instead of the real gameplay.
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There's no way there's that much space in a Sherman tank.
@ iheartjihad
I think you missed the point there. This is about how video game companies are screwing us over. The point being made was that you could pay for the regular version and use the good guns, or you could pay extra and use the exact same good guns.
It would be like making Mario and Mario Elite. In Mario you would have to do the mushroom world first, but in Mario Elite (for only $15 exrta) you could do the mushroom world OR the turtle world first. Nevermind the fact that in both games you would go through both worlds anyway.
that business with being able to pay for upgrades has been around for while, long before battlefield. for MMORPGs, many of them have a system where if you pay, you get unique or rare items, or you get special points that you can't get from anything else. battlefield is the least of these offenders. at least you can still unlock the guns yourself if you play for long enough. is it that outrageous? the idea of "unlocking items as you progress in gameplay" has been around since just about forever. and if, instead of letting people with the money and willingness pay for the upgrades, they just made everyone have to work for it, would you be as mad? there really isn't a difference. some people are big enough losers to invest a shitload of time into a game, some people are even bigger losers to waste additional real life money on a game. but that's who they are. it's just economics; you get the most profit out of an item by having people pay whatever they value it at.
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alicehuang002I remember when that commercial first came out...what idiot thought that was the actual gameplay? Even though the 360 was new, this commercial could supposedly fool the casual or first-time gamer but not the normal nerds/virgins who play video games to an extent equivalent to a full-time job (40-hours a week).
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Its weird how we finnally have come full circle from a game being paid out becuase people thought that the trailers were fake, only to find that, holy s**t, Killzone 2 actually does look that good in gameplay.
People thought that the commercial for Call of Duty 2 was the actual game??? The commercial for Big Red One was the same thing, pre-rendered, really good looking and not the actual game, and I bet nobody thought the PS2 or XBOX game really looked like or even played like the commercial. Both games had commercials of lies.
I guess in tough times they have to make by too you know.
jess
http://www.privacy.de.tc
JimMcDoshLittle Big Planet looks fun as hell. Too bad it's not for the 360 :(
I agree. Spore should've been alot better. But at least I get to laugh as my giant-penis-monster crushes the other creatures. hilarious.
Am the only one who voluntarily gave Blizzard my name, password, and credit card number? I was under the impression those were required to play WoW.
They must've conned me good!
A few things:
1st. EA is a piece of s**t. Especially recently with the PC game entitled Spore. if you have not heard about the controversy, well where to begin.
First, the game was supposed to be revolutionary in its design. Basically the idea was that you are God and you create an animal organism that evolves through different stages. For instance, from a single celled organism to multigalatic (if that is even a word) conquerer. Sounds sweet right? Well, the game is over before you start. I think it was made for children under 5. Its mind bogoling easy and you're already in space in about 5 hours. You miss like half of the evolutionary stages!! The game itself takes about maybe 8-10 hours to complete, then it is just repetition.
Second, EA decided to stick you with a device that comes in the install disk that never comes off of your computer! That's right, its called DRM and once you install the game onto your computer you can only install it two more times else where. So for 50 dollars EA sells you a rental game that you can only install 3 times. I fucked up the first time because Vista is a piece of crap. so now if I ever buy a new computer and later pull Spore off the shelf to install it, I better get it right because I only have one install left before I have to go out and buy a new one. s**t.. f*****g EA.
Now for game reviews. I went out and bought Assassins Creed because it had amazing reviews (in game informer magazine). I found the game to be crap. It was boring. Maybe it was just me, but the only thing I found that was fun was trying to kill my self by falling off various buildings and missing the landing platforms. Now I am very skeptic about buying games based on reviews by larger magazines. Its sometimes better to go buy Amazons user reviews.
i remember the COD2 thing and i was pissed, but doesn't blizzard ALREADY have my username, password, and credit card number? you assume that this "house maid" is less trustworthy than the guys with my cc number.
what ea did with the nfl was total bullshit. their games were pretty good and it was still better than espn 2k5 but the monopolizing just made them control the gamers completely. i refuse to buy any of their garbage they make today.
stop the fanboy bullshit everyone.
Wow, I finally found the most bias comment in humanity. Either bendybuddy works for microsoft or his parents were killed by sony employees. Either way his long rant was a load of bias bullshit that was opinion stated like fact. I don't know if he or hardcore 360 owners are aware but... some people ACTUALLY DON'T LIKE HALO. Yeah I know... hard to believe right? All this time you thought everyone universally thought halo was anywhere near above average but I don't mind being the first to say.... Halo is.... alright. Nothing more.
And to complain a company being "scammiest" while raving about your support for microsoft, who makes you pay for everything from playing online to taking a s**t, is pretty f*****g retarded. So nice rant, just wanted to point out how retardedly hypocritical it was.
Good job! You should start up a website with more interesting s**t you have to say. A good name for it would be www. facts that aren't really facts at all .com or maybe www. ravings of a bias moron .com
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EA have been cheating PC owners for years now. Oh, and they do the same thing Blizzard does, only EA doesn't tell you about it. It's a program called SecuRom, which is a fancy title for the spyware program they hit you with. It was put in to stop Sims players from using custom content. EA also uses underhanded tactics on those plaers by obtaining (illegally) and displaying personal details on each person they find to be customising content. Ok, so the piracy isn't legal, but it pales in comparison to the s**t EA pulls on a regular basis.