BlueSmoke - Guide : Monthly Editorials

BlueSmoke - Guide : Monthly Editorials - February, 2002

Date : Feb 4th, 2002

Genre : N/A

Developer : N/A

Author : Jin-Ning Tioh

Last month, BlueSmoke introduced the first of our monthly editorials, which addressed several issues including the treatment of female gamers in the industry and the influence of Star Wars related franchise and games. Needless to say, there are still questions and topics that need to be addressed. Which is why this month we are taking a closer look at the serious copyright problems taking place right under our noses, the tense race between gaming and technology, and the invasion of the new and promising game developers emerging from the heart of mother Russia.

As before, if any of our readers wish to send feedback on a topic or have any other questions they wish addressed, then please simply send me an e-mail at jinning@bluesmoke.net with the header "The State of the Gaming Industry - Topics", the top three topics related to the gaming industry you wished addressed and why you think they are important. If feedback on any particular topic is especially strong, we may also run a follow-up editorial on that particular issue, possibly including the e-mail sent to us from a reader.

From Mother Russia with Love...

In recent years, the gaming industry has caught the "Hollywood" syndrome. With increasingly high production values and more sophisticated technology, games are becoming increasingly beautiful and captivating. Unfortunately, not unlike some film producer calling the shots on the set, despite the objections of the director, developers are constantly being pushed and poked by publishers and marketing departments to put beautiful graphics before good gameplay, flooding the market with sub-par products aimed at appeasing a mass market.

However, hope survives. The Cold War is over and relations between Russia and the world at large are becoming more amicable than ever. Without the fear of lobbing a couple of nukes at each other, we can finally come together as friends, colleagues, techies and gamers. A recent discovery however, which is sure to surprise more than a few people, is that Russia is becoming a veritable breeding ground of original, exciting new games, not unlike the United States. In this month's editorial, we'll highlight one of the most promising development companies on the tip of the Russian digital iceberg in quite some time.

Nival Interactive

A leading Russian game developer and publisher targeting the international games market. Founded in 1996, Nival has been dedicated to creating unique titles with innovative gameplay. Past titles include original role-playing games such as the Rage of Mages series and Evil Islands : Curse of the Lost Soul, a 3D role-playing game. Recently, they also released Etherlords, the clever 3D turn-based strategy game utilizing collectible card game system. Currently a premier developer with 75 team members, Nival Interactive continues to challenge the world of interactive entertainment. Right now, they are developing Blitzkrieg, an upcoming World War II real-time strategy game which has recently reached alpha stage.

My first personal experience with their creations began with the first Rage of Mages. Although it only featured 2D characters strutting their stuff among dense forests and mountains, it gave players a sense of freedom by allowing players to hire teams of archers, cavalry or warriors to help out - For a price. Players can also train up their magic or fighting skills at the local training center and take up dozens of quests and sub-quests at taverns. The storyline is original and missions can prove to be quite challenging. Players must really learn to make the fullest use of spells, including poison gas, fire walls and so on. Rage of Mages 2 : Necromancer only improves on this formula, with several new towns including an elven camp in the forest and a dusty desert town. Dozens of new enemies including orcs, demons and the undead also populate the deserts and forests. Tons of new spells and enchanted elven weapons are also available to choose from.

Evil Islands : Curse of the Lost Soul was also another memorable gaming experience, although it was widely overlooked and proved to be difficult in the extreme for even veteran RPG gamers. It brought players on an epic quest through several unique islands, each with its own culture, feuds, races and climates, including snowy landscapes and barren deserts. With the help of a small battle party, players must battle their way through several orc tribes, ogres, goblins, dragons, cutthroats and the undead with stealth, cunning and brawn. Strategic planning is the key.

And recently, Etherlords was released to quite a number of rave reviews. A clever game, Etherlords featured astoundingly beautiful graphics. While several computer games based on collectible card games such as Magic : The Gathering simply featured little pictures of cards, Etherlords manages to bring the card game to a whole new level, with lively and fully 3D creatures and heroes battling in all their glory. To go with its the detailed graphics is its equally enjoyable CCG gameplay. Gamers are set free to customize their decks with over 300 spells of destruction and mayhem. It's a shame more developers didn't think of ideas like these sooner. But hey, as they say, "Better late then never". Hopefully clever games like Etherlords won't be such a rarity in tomorrow's gaming world.

With such memorable titles under its belt, we over at BlueSmoke are looking forward towards Nival's and CDV Software's upcoming World War II real-time strategy game, Blitzkrieg. Hopefully gamers around the globe will pay more attention to titles from Nival Interactive in the future, so to experience all they've been missing out on.

I realize this editorial is but the tip of the Russian gaming iceberg, and that there are many more Russian game developers out there who may be just as talented and dedicated to making the best PC games possible. If developers in both Russia and the United States can stick to their guns and their keyboards, and ignore to a certain extent the influence of those pushy publishers, sub-par products could very well become a thing of the past.

Pirates Ahoy! Pieces of Eight, Pieces of Eight...

There is a famous old French saying - The more things change, the more they stay the same. In many ways, this proverb fits rather snugly into the gaming industry. While new and exciting games are being dumped onto store shelves at an ever-accelerating pace, one problem remains constant through it all - Piracy. Company concerns about the volatile issue of copyright protection have been growing of late, with numerous studies confirming that software piracy occurs at record levels globally. In response to this growing threat, developers have already taken a multitude of steps to discourage such actions, including the classic manual word hunts, silly code wheels and most recently, troubling players to insert the original retail CD into the drive to run an offering.

The main attraction of pirated goods is naturally, the absurdly low prices charged. In most third world countries, prices for each game can rise at incredible rates. A game that costs forty bucks in the United States can cost up to eighty bucks or more in say, Singapore. Twice the cost. The worst part is, that amount of money could easily chomp through a lot of peoples' monthly salaries. The result is a flourishing market for pirated games and applications alike. Each game usually comes as low as two bucks per compact disc, encouraging people to dabble in the wide and cheap world of piracy. Worst yet, games, movies and applications have a disturbing tendency to appear on the market either a month or a few weeks before the official release date. And now, with the rising popularity of the DVD for movies, the pirated market has jumped at the opportunity, selling each DVD for around four dollars.

And so developers and publishers find themselves back in the same piracy predicament yet again, and consequently they introduced the same kind of solution they had done earlier - Insert disc please. While some companies have attempted to justify this action by arguing that they were saving consumers precious space, the consequences of CD copy protection schemes are still equally as painful for those who have legally purchased a game. Most new releases today take up hundreds of megabytes to install and still require the disc to be in the drive to run the software, even with the full install option. And in most cases, the CD light indicates that the disc is only being accessed at the outset, with the only purpose being to deter software piracy.

This just goes to show that zeal in attempting to prevent illegal copying of software can indeed be taken too far. However, I will be the first to confirm the legitimacy of game developers and distributors wanting to protect their investment, but the sad reality is that copyright protection methods have not been working very well. Hackers from around the globe always seem to be able to hack their way through the best anti-piracy measures. Copy protection schemes are often cracked weeks ahead of a game release, and it is often possible to find a full version circulating on the Internet prior to release. While it is clearly a prosecutable offense to distribute a hacked version of a copyrighted retail game, hackers don't seem to take much notice.

So despite all the increasing sophistication in game design and distribution, we have really not progressed much at all with regard to this thorny and difficult issue. The three main questions to be answered is how to tighten the global monitoring and punishment of illegal duplication, how to attain a long-term secure copy protection which hackers will not be able to crack easily and allows consumers to forgo the trouble of inserting the disc in the drive each time they play and perhaps how to lower prices to allow a greater selection of titles for consumers. Until progress occurs in this direction, flourishing pirates will remain the norm for some time to come.

Gaming and Technology - Playing Catch Up...

For as long as the concept of gaming has been in existence, one problem has always reared its ugly head to plague gamers around the globe - The infamous "Tech Race" syndrome. Every year, gamers and techies alike must shell out a couple thousand dollars for hardware or a new system, with their old systems becoming little more than overpriced calculators. And things do not appear to be getting better. In fact, it's only getting worse by the year. Technology is not leveling out. On the contrary, it is accelerating at an absurdly fast rate. Some gamers who are unable to keep up with the rapid pace have already been left behind. Dozens still possess relatively primitive graphic cards such as the Voodoo 2 and Riva TNT. Such is the power of the cruel beast that is technological progress.

This presents a number of up and downs. First off, the good - Games are certainly getting faster and better looking. The bad - Developers are constantly being pushed and poked by publishers and marketing departments to put beautiful graphics before good gameplay, flooding the market with average or even unentertaining titles. Also, digging deep into your wallet for a couple of grand for a new system is no small feat.

Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that gamers seem destined to shell out major bucks every year for a new system. However, several viable solutions might help to overcome the problem of keeping up with the drowning tide of progress. The most feasible of these options would be to upgrade one's computer. With the proper components, that obsolete PC hogging up space in the closet might just be able to keep up with the industry for a couple more months or even a year. The second option would be to overclock one's system. This option will help increase system performance and just might be able to keep up for a while longer. Yet another option would be to buy and play slightly older games. Older games can still prove to be genuinely fun and immersive, even after all this time. After all, computers may become obsolete, but good games never do. Of course, for gamers wanting to sample some of today's best games, this will not be a viable option.

In the end, little can be done to stop the whole technological tornado. Gamers and techies alike must still continue to shell out the bucks in order to experience new titles as opposed to witnessing a slide show. Perhaps when we reach the stage of having to look through a stack of data crystals in the future, and technology come to a temporary halt, will gamers have a chance to play catch up. Until then, anticipate having to shell out the major bucks for new systems or hardware.