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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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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 shit, is pretty fucking 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 shit 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
GameSpot is gay
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and hopefully killzone 2 will be awesome :)
the problem with resitance was that, all though a good game, it was the ONLY good game for its system... therefore effectively killing your "Halo Killer"
Whereas Halo never recieved any hype. I dunno where you get your facts, but every fan of Sony ahs agreed that their were problems with Killzone. Sony has taken all of these on board for Killzon 2. That is what we are praising as a the Halo Killer - well, the other one besides Resistance : Fall of Man.
Nice rant, Bendy. Sony's been using fake videos to hype their products for years.
I don't think Killzone sucked that badly, but it certainly wasn't worth the hype. It was exceptionally mediocre as far as FPS's go, and I don't understand why Sony and its fans are still praising the franchise as the great white hope, or "Halo killer."
I think they should have put Killzone 2 at the top.
They tried to pass off bullshit graphics at E3 three years in a row!
Fuck that stupid game.
the first one blew chocolate puffballs, (similar to Cocoa Puffs, like a walmart brand) in comparison to any first person shooter ever made on a console.
The thing is, Sony always has been and always will be the scammiest fucks in the world.
Everyone who takes the time to study knows Blu-Ray's only real advantages over HD-DVD was movie selection, and about 50 gigs of storage space. But when you can cram about 400 gigs on one disc, having 50 more is a little not so important, especially when comparing the price point.
I wish Microsoft knew how to use Jedi Mind Tricks on companies like Sony does. If we were to look at it in a similar comparison (PS3 VS. 360), since Xbox has MOST of the good games right now, we should only have to pay $50 bucks for a PS3, just like we only pay $50 bucks for a Xbox 360 HD-DVD player.
Now I don't agree with that, but it is interesting to see HD-DVD with about 500 titles compared to the thousands in the Blu-Ray library just get shafted because Sony started some monopoly act a few years ago to get just about everyone pro-Blu-Ray before HD-DVD was even had a fighting chance.
The PS3 is exactly like HD-DVD, a pathetic library in comparison to the competition.
Now, with time some great games will come to the PS3, but HD-DVD started to get some really good deals with Paramount, Dreamworks, and quite a few titles were appearing in both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats.
Hmm, sounds like the console war doesn't it?
I think it would be fucked up if we were to just shut all PS3 assembly down just because it has failed to deliver in most of the ways it was expected to. When I look at the PS3, I don't feel waves of rage build up inside, instead I feel like a coach trying to get one of my teammates to try harder, and I know they have potential, but to just kick them off the team without seeing what they are really capable of is more than fucked up. It is grounds for an earful of angry mothers. We should be those mothers saying "What the fuck?" Doesn't everyone/thing deserve a chance?
Anyway, this isn't fair, no matter what company it happens to, and that my friends, is why you shouldn't always "nip it in the bud"
@Hellblade:
That happens more often indeed, they did the same with Frontlines: Fuel of War. That game had áwesome potential, but was totally fracked over by the developers because they apperantly had a gun against there head for releasing the game on the launch-date. The game however, looked liked a beta-test version (not even óut of beta) and now barely anyone plays it. Such a shame.
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I now declare that I, with my trusty stick, will take over Antarctica and call it New Iceland. Then it will be a COUNTRY
The Blizzard thing is right on the money. My dad and I both play World of Warcraft with separate accounts (so we can play together). We use all the same add-ons and all are game legal (meaning no leveling or gold producing software). He got banned out of the blue for using an "illegal add-on". When he called Blizzard to ask what add-on so he could delete it and reactivate his account, they refused to tell him! They would reinstate his account in 72 hours, but since he didn't know which add-on was supposedly the culprit, he couldn't delete it. If Blizzard "caught" him again, they'd ban him permanently...for an add-on which was game legal! So, basically after having spent $30 for the original WoW disc, $60 for the expansion pack ($30 per each of our accounts) and $30 a month for nearly a year in subscription fees, Blizzard can ban you for no reason because they feel like it.
FINE. Let's all make fun of a CONTINENT. I say we go after...(bet u can't guess) Antarctica!!!
there's another thing that game companies like to do: selling unfinished barely-out-of-beta-version games, and waiting for gamers to do the beta testing, report bugs and so on. only then do they correct mistakes and spit out 15 patches in a week
great example is microsoft's flight simulator X, which was barely playable even on the most badass machines, full of visual glitches, until SP1 came out and suddenly, it works great.
if had purchased the game, instead of downloading a torrent, i'd be very pissed of for the fact that i'm actually giving money to do someone else's work.
also, i can't believe someone gives real money to get golden coins or whatever they use as currency in WoW...
I wonder how many people today remember or have ever heard of Legs Diamond. Well, for those of you who haven't, Legs was a popular figure of the Twenties and thirties who was the most successful professional gambler in the history of the games. What was his secret? He only bet on a sure thing. And what did he consider a sure thing? Only events that he personally fixed: horse races, boxing matches, political contests and anything else that he could get his fingers into. Legs Diamond's method is the only method I would ever use to gamble with and since I don't own a casino or online gambling sight, if I did choose to gamble I'd be on the wrong side of the table. So I never do. I may not have won any money yet, but I sure as hell haven't lost any either. Why people chose to be suckers purely eludes me.
Someone should bitch-slap mk-1601
Damn Hadron Collider...
According to the movies, your computer possesses near-magic powers.
Gamers are a vengeful god.
After reading this, you might want to board up your windows and load up your shotgun.
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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.