If there's one thing that I've picked up in the ~8 months since I started my freelancing, it's that you can't beat a good old fashioned boxed copy.
Despite various pundits trying to herald in the future of PC Gaming by bigging up the various digital platforms such as GamersGate, Steam, Impulse etc, as a reviewer, I prefer getting my games the traditional way.
Let me tell you why:
Empire: Total War, the next game in a series by English-based developer Creative Assembly (they're from Surrey, don'cha know), is due out on March 3rd/4th. Judging by videos, previews etc... This is without a doubt going to be the biggest and best game in the series, and could probably be a contender for Game of the Year. Amongst the triad of new technologies and developments being used in this title, SEGA (who own the publishing rights for Creative Assembly) have decided to make this game even more special by tying it to Valve's Steam platform.
For the uninitiated, Steam is one of the few 'pioneers' if you will of the Post-Digital Era. An independent company, Valve's Steam program serves as a hosting platform for scores of developers, and scores of titles. As well as acting as a marketplace where you can purchase PC games, Steam also hosts various multiplayer servers, videos and has its own budding online community. It also takes a slightly different approach to Digital Rights Management (DRM), and so is seen as a bit of a 'champion' of sorts. Of course, as is with all things, there's also a fair few people who hate the program with a passion, but there you go.
Back to Empire: If I were to say that I was excited about this game, then I would probably win the understatement of the year award. I know for some this would call into question my objectivity as a journalist, but to be quite honest, I'm more likely to be objective with a game I really like, as opposed to a game I really hate.
Working for an online publication as I do, it’s not uncommon for me to receive review code through digital distribution as opposed to a CD in the post. (Although, as it happens, I've received more games through the post then I have via the internet.) Whilst I do take a certain secret pleasure in receiving games through the post, especially when the publisher has been generous enough to provide a full retail copy, at the end of the day, I don't mind how I get my game, so long as I get it.
With Empire, it soon became apparent that SEGA was going to try and milk the whole Steam angle for all it was worth, and was forcing the majority of online publications, especially the 'not so big ones' like mine, to obtain their code from Steam. Fine, ok. I can deal with that. I would have preffered a nice shiny boxed copy, but whatever.
So rewind to last Wednesday. I was chatting to my editor, as we do, and eventually we get our serial code from Sega for our copy of Empire. Huzzah! Overflowing with anticipation, I eagerly open up Steam, go the Activation's section, and type in my code. Crash....Wait? What? I re-open the program, type in the code again. Crash. ...Fuck.No matter how many times I try, the Steam client always crashes whenever I type in the key. Which means I can't download Empire. Which means I can't play Empire... oh God.As you can imagine, I was a tad distressed by these turn of events. The moment I had been waiting for had been snatched from me by some karmic twist of fate, and I could not play the game I'd been waiting many a -month for. After frantically informing my editor of the situation, we both desperately tried to find a solution to the problem, which to this day has yet to be found.Although we now know what the cause of the problem is. A combination of a final release version being chosen, Steam's set-up for purchasing Empire online, and some sort of password algorithm (I'm a bit fuzzy over that bit), means that the Steam client can't find what it's looking for, and so shuts down in confusion and fear. Despite several emails to Sega, Valve, and whoever else we thought could help, the best we got was that they were 'working on it', and as the weekend approached, it was clear that I wouldn't be getting a review copy until Monday, at the earliest. Considering they're releasing it on Tuesday and Wednesday, it's quite possible that normal people are going to get to play this game before I do. Unprecedented, and totally unacceptable.The only good point to come out of all this is that it happened to everyone else as well, as there are only 2/3 reviews actually online so far. Still, I'm over it now. Extremely disappointed, but over it. I know I'll be getting my hands on this game sooner or later, but the experience will be tainted ever so slightly.And so we come back to the original point of this rant: the boxed copy. If SEGA had only stopped trying to be hip, or had made sure that the keys were set up properly, I wouldn't be here. Whilst I fully realise that digital distribution was probably the easiest way to get us our code, the fact that they didn't even check to see if it was working properly is embarrassing, and the fact that they didn't just send us out boxed copies as replacements is unfortunate.I will say this though, in their defence: all of this I have deduced from talking to other people, or working it out on my own. Perhaps there was a more reasonable explanation for what happened, but Sega haven't exactly been talkative since this the initial event. That's public relations for you.At the end of the day though, nothing beats a boxed copy of a game... Apart from maybe the Royal Mail.
Labels: Damn it, Digital Distribution, Empire: Total War, Grrr, journalism, Karma, Reviewing, Sega, Steam, Video Games
