Bit of a false story. Funcom have balanced their books by reducing costs not necessarily by increasing income. One has to wonder who will sign up to any new subscription based MMO anymore on launch.
It is things like this that continue to hold gaming back. Difficult topics are part of life and are reflected in many other mediums: There are countless films / plays / paintings and even songs that deal with very difficult topics both fictional and real so why should gaming be any different?
@slysin The severity of an issue is very much in the eye of the beholder, I did of course point out that it was no where near the level of the Diablo 3 launch, I expect a product I buy to come fully functional from when I get it not when they get round to fixing it and anything less should be completely unacceptable.
@Slagar Nice to see some people can't respond to a post with out resorting to personal slurs about someone they have never met or had any dealings with.
I don't think it is particularly unreasonable to expect a game to work perfectly out of the box on day one. Sadly however it is a mentality that has become all too common from publishers (not devs as they have never been the ones setting the deadlines) that they can push out a faulty product then fix it later take Skyrim for example here which was a wonderful game once everything had been fixed.
More troubling than the publishers adopting this attitude is the way a generation of gamers a slowly finding this practice acceptable. From someone who had to put up with broken games on consoles before they could be patched through the internet I find the return to gradual erosion of basic consumer rights to have a fully working product from the second you get it out of the box something that should not be excused.
Then again one should hardly be suprised since people are perfectly prepared to buy jeans that are ripped up, sorry the term is "Distressed" I believe.
Yet another botched PC launch, while not on the scale of the Diablo 3 farce it does make one wonder how they can not see these issues coming and sort them before release.
I was massively excited to get into Guild Wars 2 having loved the original but I'll wait till they can actually provide a working product before buying it.
In my humble opinion piracy can never be justified, if you can’t afford something you do not have some divine right to have it, sadly it is nothing more than another example of the culture that has been created by the credit revolution. Cannot afford something? Do not worry you can simply borrow money to have it, live beyond your means and blame everyone else when the crows come home to roost.
We’d be daft to try and pretend any measures are going to stop piracy though as people will endlessly justify it to themselves.
Excellent article demonstrating self awareness of the inherent duplicity within many of our preconceptions about the superiority of how we choose to entertain ourselves that is sadly all too lacking in the majority of the media.
We can see similar things in those who say a subscription based MMO is a waste of time when we equally might have a monthly subscription fee to a TV channel for example Sky here in the UK so we can watch sport or anything else that might be perceived as being more socially acceptable. It's geekish to spend $15 a month to engage with a large community doing something you enjoy but normal to spend £25 to sit in your lounge on your own watching football, rugby or cricket.
At the end of the day we will always be protective over the things we like and discredit those we do not, be it supporting underground music and claiming anyone who reaches mass popularity as having 'sold out'. Nice to see an article on here recognising this simple truth.
I think the one thing to perhaps throw into the mix here is that Schwartz specifically talks about Activision as opposed to Activision Blizzard which could imply that the claim refers to the period prior to the merger which would make a lot more sense as I don't think he'd throw out hyperbolic claims in to the web prior to the trail.
Either way, nice to have a thoroughly civil conversation on the web!
UndertheArchway's comments