How my hobby is starting to end being a hobby..
I remember [Well, actually I dont, but I will pretend I remember and describe something..] many years ago, when I woke up one Saturday morning.
The sun was shining through a small opening in the curtains and the birds were happily sending their 'THIS IS MY TERRITORY!' or 'HEY GIRLS!' signal to the surroundings.
I stood up, and I was happy. Happy because today I was going to take the bus into the city and purchase a new video game for my computer [AMiGA at the time] from the local game pusher [Dixons in Oslo, Norway].
Why was I happy? Probably because I was oblivious to all the consumer rights that I had gained through others valiant battles and because I knew that the product I purchased would work - with no strings attached.
Booting up my AMiGA [quickly] when I got home, i promptly inserted disk 1 of 10 and proceeded to being the installation of the game,. [Kings Quest IV?].
After the lengthy installation process.. I could place the discs inside the game box and store it on my game shelv, next to [All] the other Sierra games,
and I could play the game, with no hassles except the occasionall Guru Meditation.
It was a happy period of my life. and it was the height of my gaming hobby [It seems..].
Sure, games have gotten more advanced, better audio and graphics, more things to blow up or adventures to participate in... but something else has happened.. something sick and twisted. I am no longer 'respected' by the publishers as a customer and gamer.
You see. I could install Kings Quest and play the game without needing to have the installation medium available to me. This meant that I could have a disc with .mods in my drive, or a savegame disc, or anything I wanted while I was playing the game. Thanks to the fantastic screen systems on the Amiga I could just 'drag' the kings quest window behind my desktop and quickly switch between gaming and working [or whatever I wanted to do].
Lately I have the feeling that unless I have disabled X,Y,Z software and installed Starforce, Securom, Macrovision, Safedisc and whatnots Device Drivers [Hidden...] AND signed a 20 page EULA.. AND connected to their authorization service.. AND inserted the damn scratch-prone fragile DVD into my SLOT DVD-RW I am not able to enjoy my hobby.. and I know that they do not respect me enough as their customer to let me enjoy their products without being abused.
How would you like to ALWAYS be taken to the side at the airport and told to 'spread em' while somebody covers their hairy hand with double latex gloves.. every time you wanted to take an airplane. This is what happens almost every time you want to play a modern computer game. You are violated because of some "higher cause" those who violate you have misplaced their faith in.
But I am begining to wonder if some people actually like this abuse, some sort of S/M fetish where you are abused.. and come back for more. because once the pain is gone, its 'ooh soo good'.
Never minding that you are doing a disservice to everyone, including yourself although you are to blinded by gaming bliss to notice it.
The downfall of computer gaming on the PC platform is not caused by the so called pirates, or the terrorist gangs that sell you games for 2.95$ from a cardboard box in a alley behind the supermarket.
The downfall is caused by uncritical consumers and rabit fanboys. These fanboys may tell you one that that "I will never purchase games from that publisher, because they have starforce in theri games.. " but when Diablo 3 or Fanboy 4 is released, they will buy it immediately, even if it could require them to plug their finger on a fingerprint sensor to play the game.
The uncritical consumer and the fanbois fund a industry that does everyhting in its power to limit your rights over a product you purchase [Legaly] and even though in some cases they dislike it.. [Such as inserting the cd] they then abuse the work of the Crackers by downloading NOCD patches for those titles. Why is it Abuse? Because you pay money to fund a industry that is attempting to throw those who help make your game enjoyable in jail.
If you are going to take a stand in the consumer war you should pick your side fully, and not 'jump across the fence' any time you feel like it.
Every time you want to buy a game you should find out what their stance is on backups, if you can install the game on multiple computers, if you need always-on internet to play the game and if you require the installation media to be in the drive to play the game. If for any reason one of these issues go against what you feel you should be entiteled to do, under fair use and as a honest consumer, you should take the money and save them, or invest in other alternate gaming venues, such as Totalgaming.net or shareware titles [that are available in abundance] AND write the publisher of the software a letter explaning exactly WHY they lost you as a consumer.
Sure, they will ignore you, and your cause as well as your expressed oppinion will be ridiculed and loathed by above mentioned fanboys and uncritical consumers. But at least you have stuck to your 'guns' and kept your integrity. You will also have helped [Although some would argue "to no avail"] the rights of the consumer/customer.
If the computer industry want me as a customer I would expect them to show me the same respect and trust as I show them when I install their software on the computer system where "all" my personal and work related files are located. And that means no c:\*
deletion bugs such as with Pools of Radiance II. either.
Good thing I can still read books without being forced to use a certain lightbulb or sit in a specific chair. I could even let others read the book with me, read it to others or lend them the book. Even photocopy it and put it into my PC with OCR to read on my tabled PC. And I did'nt have to read through 25 pages of EULA and click "I Agree [to something I do not]" just to get there. Last year I bought 3 games. SaVage [Online NOCD], UT2004 [NOCd in PAtch #1 or #2] and Galactic Civilizations [That also prompted a purchase of a totalgaming.net subscription. Not as much because I wanted all the games there - no offence - but because I wanted to support a developer/publisher that showed me the trust/respect that I would expect from anyone when you are involved in a purchase].