Mord's Project No Dollar

[owsf2000]

This is my counter code-word for EA's new Project Ten Dollar codeword described here. What it means is I won't be buying an EA game ever again. I'm sure this will be expanded to other publishers in the near future. For the sake of Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo, I hope it won't catch on amongst the producers so fast that I just say to hell with getting their console next year altogether.

The comments in the kotaku article make me puke as well. I dove back into them to read a bit more just to make sure they made me sick, and sure enough my first impulse was confirmed.

Comments

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, the sooner EA boots John Riccitiello and brings in someone who isn't an asshole, the better off everyone will be. Well, everyone who isn't EA anyway, which is why it will never happen, of course.

This is part of the reason[1] why I lament the fact that Bioware was absorbed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si_P8BypaUk)[2] into EA. They make awesome games[3], but now those games are getting shackled with shit like Cerberus Network and the like, which I'm sure was mostly EA's big idea.

At first, I was like "Why does he hate the comments so much?" since most of the ones I was seeing at first were agreeing that this was a crappy idea, but then I expanded all of the replies and started seeing the "but this is actually a good idea!" posts. So, yeah. :(

Also, here is a point that was lost in my comment to your earlier post (http://owsf2000.livejournal.com/67614.html?thread=86302#t86302), so I'll repost it here. Imagine if, say, Ford or whoever installed a magical black box thing in their cars that somehow kept track of the title deed when a car was sold and, as soon as that title changed hands from the original owner, disabled part of the vehicle (e.g. the radio or air conditioner or something) that was resold until the new owner paid something to Ford to unlock the functionality. The buyer of a new car gets the ability to use that functionality for free, but any and all subsequent buyers have to pay Ford something extra to get the ability to use that functionality. People would flip their shit and rightfully so (or else, if they were tech savvy enough, would rip out the offending black box, which I guess is equivalent to cracks that are made to get around SecuROM and such DRM in games[4]). This is pretty much the same thing that is going on here with EA, i.e. the ability to download DLC for Mass Effect 2 is free for users who use the one-time-use code that came with the new game to unlock Cerberus Network, but anybody who bought the game used and wants to be able to buy DLC has to first pay to unlock Cerberus Network, in addition to then buying whatever DLC that may be available (minus, I guess, the DLC that comes free with the initial activation of Cerberus Network, unless they start charging for that too down the road, which I wouldn't put past them at all).

[1] - This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts#Defunct) being the other reason. I fear it's only a matter of time before Bioware is also added to that list.

[2] - Warning, that link contains spoilers for a small part of the ending of Mass Effect 2, assuming one cares about that sort of thing.

[3] - Awesome enough that I'm not going to stop buying them even so, despite the added bullshit. So... am I part of the problem? Maybe so. I still think this Project Ten Dollar thing is a terrible, shitty idea, but not enough so to stop indirectly supporting the terrible, shitty idea by buying the games. *sigh* What can one do, aside from what you're doing and completely do without? I admire that (though I also lament the fact that you'll miss some otherwise amazing games as a result), but I honestly just don't care quite enough about it to do the same thing myself. And this is what EA is banking on, that enough people will be like me and just be apathetic about it, or like the dumbasses on Kotaku who are actively praising and supporting it, rather than like you and not buying the games at all. I recognize that fact, but it still doesn't change anything for me really. :/

[4] - I have absolutely no problem with people who legitimately buy a game using crackz to get around shitty DRM, especially if said DRM otherwise hoses their system. The only people I have a problem with are pirates who illegally download the game without paying for it and then using crackz to get around the DRM.[5]

[5] - I don't know if these OW! style footnotes are going to become a Regular Thing™ with me or not. We'll see I guess!

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Also, maybe I should start reading more Kotaku and less Destructoid (http://www.destructoid.com/), since Dtoid, though it was cool at first, has become increasingly shittier as time goes on.

The Dtoid community and forums has become shittier and shittier as 4chan style trolls and asshats and "typical, jaded, cynical gamer" types become a bigger and bigger part of it. At least Kotaku actually makes an effort to ban its trolls, as far as I'm aware anyway. Of course, as you note above, the Kotaku community also seems to have its own brand of shittiness as well.

Also, the actual editors of Dtoid themselves have been becoming more and more full of themselves (and of shit) as time goes on, and the quality of the articles (and their, at times laughable, new game reviews) are suffering as a result. They finally got rid of Robert Summa (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&num=100&q=%22Robert+Summa%22+destructoid+joystiq&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=c5aa4278f68e4a4) a few years ago (whom they picked up after he was fired from joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/), which should tell you something right there), which went a long way toward them regaining my respect (though they never really recovered fully), but now they have assholes like Anthony Burch (http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/index.phtml?a=1334) and Jim Sterling (http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/index.phtml?a=8423) (both of whom I actually liked at first, and still actually kind of do for some things) who are starting to bring the site down again. I don't read Kotaku enough to know if it has this same sort of problem though, so maybe it has some shitty editors as well and this is just a problem that any gaming "news" site has from time to time.

And, wow, that turned in a much larger rant than I intended it to be. o_O