The PC is Dead, Long Live the PC

So Valve made an interesting announcement today.

To summarize:

• Steam is coming to the Mac platform, starting in April.
• Valve games, starting with Portal 2, will be simu-released on Windows, Mac, and 360
• Cross-play between Mac and PC is supported
• Purchasing for one platform can mean getting it for both (Steam Play).
• All existing Steam services will work for Mac
• Source Engine is also coming to Mac
• Source Engine code will cross-compile to either Windows or Mac, meaning less re-work in porting

Let that sink in for a minute.  This means a lot more than simply another way to buy Mac games, this is potentially the first step in a complete shift in the computer video game market.  About 60% of all AAA Mac games are published by one company: Aspyr.  That means that with a single business deal, Steam could be fronting a large portion of the entire Mac gaming catalog.  Steam is already easily the dominant digital distribution service for retail titles on PC, and could easily become the dominant force in Mac gaming too.  By making a bet on their future titles, they’re also saying that they see the Mac as a valid platform on it’s own, at least on par with Windows.

We’re moving to a world of digital distribution on the PC (Windows and Mac both).  The benefits to (transparent, non-obtrusive) DRM that becomes available on that channel make this a certainty.  To Valve, this isn’t just about opening a new market segment, this is about consolidating the retail channel under their house, and about continuing to provide further reasons why when you make a PC game, you should integrate with their user services and their social network.  If they’re successful, it means that they’ve abstracted away the OS.  The game will not be defined by what OS it runs on, but on what social network it’s tied to.  You won’t be a Windows Gamer, or a Mac Gamer, you’ll be a Steam gamer.

The Gamer’s Bill of Rights in the Digital Age

When I was at PAX this year, Stardock had this display tuned out akin to the way you see the Declaration of Independence or the Magna Carta shown in museums.  The display was for an initiative they call “The Gamer’s Bill of Rights“, in which they’re trying to get the PC game industry on board with “a set of principles we can abide by to improve the customer experience”.  The current tenants of those principles are as follows:

1.  Gamers shall have the right to return games that are incompatible or do not function at a reasonable level of performance for a full refund within a reasonable amount of time.

2.  Gamers shall have the right that games they purchase shall function as designed without defects that would materially affect the player experience.

3.  Gamers shall have the right that games will receive updates that address minor defects as well as improves game play based on player feedback within reason.

4.  Gamers shall have the right to have their games not require a third-party download manager installed in order for the game to function.

5.  Gamers shall have the right to have their games perform adequately if their hardware meets the posted minimum requirements.

6.  Gamers shall have the right not to have any of their games install hidden drivers.

7.  Games shall have the right to re-download the latest version of the games they purchase.

8.  Gamers shall have the right to user their games without being inconvenienced due to copy protection or DRM.

9.  Gamers shall have the right to play single player games without having to have an Internet connection.

10.  Gamers shall have the right to sell or transfer ownership of a physical copy of a game they own to another person.

Given the recent announcements both by Stardock and Valve on the topic of DRM, I think there are arguably some adjustments to be made.  In the customer report from which that list was pulled, Stardock discusses the issue that the burden is not on publishers to provide mechanisms to sell and transfer digital titles.  I find this highly ironic considering one of the primary features of the new “Goo” system they announced is to do just that.  However, I agree, that the burden is not on the publisher, it’s on the distributor.

Video Games in the 21st century are not like games in the 90s.  Certainly to a large extent today, and ever more so going forward, games will be distributed through the internet, or will at least leverage the internet.  Games no longer exist in a vaccuum, on their own right, but are tied into a larger social platform such as Steam Community or Xbox Live.  As this process continues, it means that when users choose where to buy a game, it is no longer the choice of a commodity, buying the same game from Walmart or from Gamestop.  It’s not even the choice of interface (Do I want to play this game on my console, or on my PC).  When you purchase a game, you are contributing to your personal space within a social ecosystem.  It’s like choosing between MySpace and Facebook. 

What this means is, that for the first time, Distributor/Retailers are now also developers of a social network, with all the benefits and responsibilities thereto appertaining.

This has implications.

In the new world, the existence or lack thereof of a disc is irrelevant.  You are not purchasing a CD - you never were - you were purchasing the right to play that game.  With a CD (at least on a console), you have the ability to easily transfer, or loan your rights to another person.  Stardock is the first, as far as I’m aware, to easily enable this process on games that are purely digitally distributed.  Kudos to them, it will mean competitively, if this is a popular addition in the marketplace, that all the other players will likely have to follow suit.  Score one for the gamer.

I think there are some nuances potentially missing here as well though.  While a secondary market is important, there are also a lot of loans going on, which is not enabled by this system AFAIK.  There is a logical distinction between the person who owns the game, and the person who is currently playing (or allowed to play) the game that is disabled in a system where only the owner of the game is allowed to play it, using their account.  This prevents members of the same household from participating in their own social groups using a single instance of a game (but not at the same time), or from allowing friends to loan each other games, or for any kind of time-limited loans of titles to be made.  I’m not aware of any platform that currently supports these scenarios in any sophisticated way.

Because of the nature of these emerging environments - distributor as social network - it means that in the near future an oligopoly will form around a very small (1 or 2) number of distributors who can build our their community the fastest, with the best features.  Presently the barrier to entry to create a game distribution platform is relatively low, because game publishers treat these platforms as just another kind of retailer - if you’re able and willing to sell their games, and the publisher needs to do little or no work to get on your platform, they’re willing to do business with you.  Providing benefits like piracy protection and metrics (e.g. Steamworks) only sweetens the deal.  As users become ‘locked in’ to a specific network, where all their licenses exist, and all their friends play, and all their status symbols are kept, the barrier becomes more difficult, because in order to create a new platform, you need to shift a significant install base from an existing network.  There will be a Facebook/MySpace of PC-centric gaming platforms, and the race is on, but it’s not clear who that winner will be yet.

Stardock Impulse

I just downloaded Stardock’s new Digital Distribution platform Impulse, and thus far I’m reasonably impressed.

Without getting too far into it, it looks like both Steam and Impulse essentially have a web browser embedded in them, and they use the callbacks from this browser to kick off the downloads process.  Both services allow you to keep a catalog of your games, re-download them as many times as you want, and both services have community elements as well.

Steam has a better catalog of games, and has hooks into various Valve magic such as a Steamworks, and saved games in the cloud (which is awesome).

But Impulse is shiny, and that matters.  I currently use both Quicken Online (at least until my trial expires) and Mint for personal finances, and even though Mint is horribly crippled by not supporting Canadian banks, I still log into it because it’s prettier than Quicken is.  Additionally, Steam has the unfortunate habit of randomly hanging in the middle of downloads, requiring me to stop and restart the download.  This isn’t a show stopping issue, but it’s irritating, and Impulse can capitalize on that.

Web design has moved forward since Steam was launched, and it’s time for Steam to bring some of those design principles to the table.

Steamworks

Valve has announced a new design platform for PC game design called Steamworks, available free of charge. The suite of tools seems to focus on easing some production-level issues rather than design issues. This includes smoothing delivery of the game through Steam’s retail channel, as well as providing certain frameworks to improve a game so delivered, notably in the multi-player arena.

Most notably in my opinion is the inclusion of hooks for getting play data back from the users once they’ve been launched.  This type of data gathering immensely helps developers get information about how the players are playing their game, and thus to take this data back and use it to improve designs for future titles.

All of this of course depends on the utilization of Steam as the delivery channel, something very few large studios would want to commit exclusively to.  I’ve asked Jason Holtman how well Steamworks would interface with XNA, as these two technologies seem to me to be functionally, if not technically, complementary.  If I hear back from him, I’ll update this page.

Rockstar comes to Steam

Rockstar and Valve announced yesterday that many of Rockstar’s games are now available for download through Steam.  This includes both the Max Payne series and the entire Grand Theft Auto series.  Notably absent is Bully.  Valve continues to do very well for itself, and at this rate, will corner the market in Digital Distribution of PC games.

Even More Digital Delivery

Steam, I still love you, but we’re moving into an open relationship.

After replacing the misbehaving video card in my frankenstein-esque laptop (Replaced the keyboard 3 times, case fan twice, hard drive, batteries, and now the graphics card), I decided to celebrate with a purchase from the bargain bin (Evil Genius, which then proceeded to eat my weekend. I’m a sucker for a short fat guy with a monocle). Having firmly planted myself on the side of the people who make the things I love, I absolutely cannot stand going to GameStop/EB Games/The Den of Despair. If I’m forced to due to exclusive packages, etc., I will always buy games new, even if they cost more, so as to support the publisher and developer. Gamestop’s draconian policies around pre-ordering and the fact that their business model of making massive profits on the secondary market at the expense of the people who actually are responsible for the content they sell makes digital delivery all the more appealing. Unfortunately these same retailers have a lot of power to essentially extort publishers by threatening not to stock their games, or to carry less copies when the publishers try to work around them via the digital route. One gets the impression that there’s a lot of cloak and dagger going on between publishers and retailers.

At any rate, I’ve already purchased every game Steam offers I have any interest in with a metacritic rating above 70. This has led me to Warcry. The deal is similar to Steam, only instead of a client, you download the game installer manually (and unless you have a download manager, potentially multiple times, as browsers don’t like massive file downloads via http). The good side of things is that once you install the game and validate your account with the installation, you’re done, the game acts just like the retail copy does, and no further DRM is in place.

In other news, Microsoft has announced that it’s going to add a new digital delivery service to compliment Xbox Live Arcade. The service entitled “Xbox Originals” will allow players to download through Xbox Live games for the classic Xbox including Psychonauts, Crimson Skies, Fable, and the original Halo (Maybe not as good as Nintendo’s back catalog, but I’ll take it). The service will kick off December 4th.

Looks like I’ll be buying my third copy of Psychonauts. Tim Schaefer must be making matresses out of my money.

Digital Distrubition… It’s so beautiful

If it’s not clear to anyone yet, I love Steam a lot. Nevertheless, most of the games available on it are older games who’s owners are trying to squeeze a few more dollars out of. Approximately one quarter of the games on it are actually released for the first time on Steam, but nearly all of these are games developed by Valve (who are using their own medium to sell games for lower distribution costs) or independent developers who see Steam as a channel for cheaply creating video games.

So when I see that Bioshock, a game many have been eagerly awaiting for three years is now available for pre-downloading through steam, it makes a man weep. While I was aware that Bioshock was being released simutaneously for Windows and Xbox 360, I did not realize that the category of Windows was broken down into “Retail Stores”, “Steam” and “Direct2Drive”. Unfortunately there’s no way that I’m aware of to download a Big Daddy figure, so I’ll still be getting the physical retail version methinks. I did this initially when Half-Life 2 came out, and Steam automatically added the game to my account, so that in the future I could install it via download. Perhaps the same thing will happen with Bioshock?

At any rate, seeing a 3rd party AAA title being released through Digital mechanisms means to me that yet another nail has been put in the coffin of the malevolent entity that is Gamestop/EB Games. And the peasants rejoiced.

iD Games on Steam

It seems that iD software dumped most of their catalog onto Steam a couple of days ago.

I never thought I’d be buying the Commander Keen series for $4.99 in 2007.

• Commander Keen, Episodes 1 through 5
• Wolfenstein 3D
• Spear of Destiny
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein
• Ultimate DOOM
• DOOM II
• Master Levels for DOOM II
• Final DOOM
• DOOM3
• DOOM3: Resurrection of Evil
• QUAKE
• QUAKE Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon
• QUAKE Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity
• QUAKE II
• QUAKE II Mission Pack: The Reckoning
• QUAKE II Mission Pack: Ground Zero
• QUAKE III Arena
• QUAKE III: Team Arena
• Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders
• HeXen
• HeXen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel
• HeXen II

Now, the thing that kind of scares me is the iD Super Pack, which includes every iD game Steam offers (namely the above).

But it’s 62.95!

I buy a LOT of Steam games.  A LOT.  I’ve repurchased several games I already own on Steam just because it was more convenient (Thief 3, The Longest Journey, Psychonauts), but I don’t really see myself jumping on board 60 bucks worth of like, Heretic, and HeXen, and Quake.. All of them.

But then, I was never really into Quake, so maybe this one just isn’t aimed at me.

The Wikinomics of Video Game Assets

I’ve recently finished reading Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, and it got me thinking about a new approach to game assets. Game assets are the “things” that go into a game. For example, artwork (textures, 3D Models, Sprites), Sound Effects, Music, Voice, etc.

The primary job of the Artists, Sound Engineers, and Designers is to create this content. As gamers continue to demand higher quality games, one of the most straightforward ways to increase such an ineffable metric as ‘quality’ is to increase the amount of content, especially artwork, as well as the complexity. While the tools to create these assets continue to evolve in parallel with increasing demands (and to a certain extent, driving these demands), Content developers can still only make new assets so fast. Developing these works is a rather specialized skill which requires a large modicum of creativity as well. As such, developing these assets is one of the most expensive parts of creating games. These costs have risen to the degree that barriers to entry in the video game industry are now quite prohibitive. This makes it difficult for small commercial studios and independent developers who have difficulty drumming up the resources to hire content developers to get off the ground.

It also makes life difficult for large developers and publishing studios. The Games Publishing Business, much like the recording industry, is a difficult and stressful business to be in. In the music industry, you have no way of speeding up creativity. The artist will create music at his or her own pace, so you have no real way of knowing when it will be ready. When it is ready, you don’t know if it will be good, and if it is good, you don’t know if the public will go for it. The games industry has mitigated these factors somewhat by sticking to formats which are well established. Publishers are less willing to fork over cash for a completely new idea that doesn’t have established sales potential when they could spend the same money to create a new first-person shooter. If the cost case is the same, they’re in the business of risk management. At the same time, however, completely original ideas are the seeds from which new genres, and thus new profit centers grow. Without fostering an environment in which these new ideas can be fleshed out, Publishers are choking off their own future revenues. What Publishers need is a way to promote methods for independent developers to bring out their new ideas in an inexpensive way, so that they can publish these titles without taking on large risk. Microsoft is already doing this to a certain extent through XNA and XBox Live Arcade. This does not, however, address the issue of expensive assets.

To resolve this issue, enter Wikinomics. There are several large publishing studios who also act as in-house development studios (Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Nintendo). What this means is that they own large amounts of sound and art assets which they are not currently using. What these publishing houses should do is license a large portion of the assets from development studios they own to the public for free under some form of Creative Commons License. The license would allow for commercial works, including derivatives to be created, as long as the original artist and studio were credited in the final production. Access to large volumes of free and fully utilizable content would massively reduce the cost of developing new titles.

Okay, so you probably see why it would be of benefit to indies to have access to all the art assets owned by Microsoft Games (Lionhead, Rare, Ensemble, Bungie, FASA), Electronic Arts (Bullfrog, Origin, Maxis, Westwood, EA Sports), Nintendo, and Ubisoft for no cost, but why would they do this?

Simple. These warehouses of assets are not profit-centers for these companies, but they could be. By opening up these assets, at virtually no cost to themselves, they would stimulate significant growth in the independant games community. These indies would be able to take assets which were professionally developed, modify them to their own needs, and more easily deploy a marketable title. Many of these titles will be new and innovative, and employ gameplay that would be too risky for a major developer to secure funding for. These indies are then going to be looking for someone to publish their titles. And by providing them with all that content, that goes a long way for goodwill towards the publisher. Publishing these titles through more inexpensive mechanisms like Steam or Xbox Live is a low-risk cost to these publishers, and it’s more than likely that some of these new titles might be a major hit, allowing the publisher to thus have turned their old warehoused assets into major profit centers.

Merck did this with pharmacetuical prototypes, and encouraged other major players to join in. It resulted in a major cost savings for everyone involved, as much of the overhead being done simutaneously be each individual company was reduced. I don’t see why this tactic couldn’t work for major development studios as well.

Unfortunately, unless a CEO somewhere has a massive flash of inspiration and drives this initiative, we’re not likely to see it in the near future (Come on Reggie, we’re counting on you now).