Posts Tagged ‘games’
Filed under: Hmmm
Expanding from what we talked about yesterday I wanted to point out some fairly good alternatives to those of you who might be interested. There are like three or four main games sites where you can download pc games, one of them even works to keep a lot of the digital rights management crap off of your system. A few sites that I know of that you can purchase and download games from are GamersGate, Direct 2 Drive (D2D), Steam and Good Old Games. I would highly suggest that if you are interested in a game to check several sites especially on the weekend because they always have some sort of weekend deal going where you can often get a good and recent game fairly cheaply.
Actually, I think only one of them helps with keeping DRM from annoying you, the others are just good places to download games. If you don’t mind old games then Good old Games looks like it has a great selection of those. It is the only one of those I mentioned that I have not used yet, though. I did have an issue with the PayNova GamersGate uses, but they responded to my issue within a day and worked with me to resolve it and I would definitely use GamersGate again. D2D is pretty good with sales, and I have picked up a few from them that I wanted at nice prices. I did have an installation issue with one of their games but again, while slow, their support area has worked with me consistently to solve the issue and I would recommend them as well.
The place that covers you on annoying DRM issues is Steam and I think Good old Games. You are basically signing up for an account and your games are locked to that account. You still may have issues with installing many times, but a quick email with a reason why you need to install the game for the 23rd time will usually get you past that problem. I like how Steam has things set up as an interactive community. If they would allow us to put in our codes for games we purchased elsewhere online or in the store and utilize their system for saving the games I would be using it 98% of the time when I am dealing with games. They don’t, as I understand it right now you can add a separately purchased game to your game titles in Steam but all that does is make a shortcut from Steam to your game and doesn’t really give you the benefits of Steam. I am sure you may have different opinions on these sites and I am also sure that we would all love to hear them so we can make informed decisions on purchasing.
Tags: digital rights, downloading, games, pc games
Filed under: Uncategorized
Why would you want to put software on your computer that often acts just like adware and attempts to control what you have already paid for? It doesn’t make sense to me either. They punish those that want to play legally and end up shooting themselves in the foot, kind of like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I don’t quite get what the thought process is the game companies go through? Put the game out with clear documentation on what the public is actually getting when they buy it and then put a huge effort into the community and ensuring that people who are playing the game illegally are painted as scum in that game community. I think if company worked to change the gamers attitudes about their games and how they do DRM it would pay off in dividends for them. They would just have to get the gamers behind them.
Can anybody really blame people for downloading games illegally? Actually, I can but in general I don’t. The companies are cracking down and making the illegal game copies so much more appealing. When a company makes it downright unpleasant for the regular public to play their games through harsh digital rights management actions, like required, continual online activation or other measures, people will choose the easier way if they want to play.
It wouldn’t be too hard to do especially if you had little to no DRM and specifically stated that and why you did it. Make the community and your users your DRM and you have people to support you, a built in audience and more revenue. If you have a few people in the forums or just around the net quietly pointing out that if you aren’t playing the game legally we want nothing to do with you because you are trying to kill what we like by not supporting the game makers, I think the message would get across. Plus you wouldn’t be driving over half of your potential gamers away with unpleasant and invasive DRM. Of course the game has to also be good, but that’s a different issue.
Tags: drm, games, pc games, theft
Filed under: Uncategorized
Games are great fun. I prefer pc games to console games; I don’t even own a console. I hope that doesn’t offend anybody! Not that it matters much, but pc games just have more of the type I like. I am big on role playing games and am becoming more interested in adventure, strategy and simulation games. Back a few years when I was thinking about picking up a console there weren’t many with good choices in the role playing genre. I haven’t checked recently to see if that has changed.
I spent some time looking through the available games sites for new and old rpg’s that I could pick up. I am really interested in the downloadable ones because that is much easier. D2D and steam seem fairly convenient but they don’t have all the ones I am interested in. They do have a few but their selection isn’t as large as I would wish. Hopefully they will continue to grow their database of games. The older ones are cheaper and you know they already have almost all of the needed patches for them. It makes playing them much easier than when they were first released.
There are a couple of role playing games I like but I would really like to see a mixture of games molded into great role playing games. Take the openness of Oblivion with the character interaction of Baldur’s Gate II or Neverwinter Night’s II and the riding and fighting capabilities of Mount & Blade, plus the fun of Sid Meier’s Pirates and you would have a great game! The best part of any game for me, what I am looking for comes down to three things really. If a game has open exploration, great character building and character interaction I am extremely happy with it. I love building my character. I think I often spend more time doing that then actually playing the game.
Tags: classics, games, pc, role playing games, rpg
