Game code guarding comes at a high price
How much control should the people who publish games have over what you do with them?
Tecmo, the developer that made such high-profile titles as “Ninja Gaiden” and “Dead or Alive 3” for the Xbox, is suing an online message forum. It alleges that the forums included hacked code from its games and help on how to hack them.
As a gamer, you might shrug. But the lawsuit underscores a split that’s developing among game publishers about how much control you should have over the games you buy and play.
Even as Tecmo is taking steps to protect its characters and games (which were likely being hacked to look different, or play in the nude, according to an industry magazine), other publishers are reaching out to people who want to do exactly the same thing.
Take Valve, for example, makers of “Half-Life 2,” or Epic Games, makers of the “Unreal” series of shooters. Both offer fans and garage developers alike tools for making new “skins” that include different characters, locations and sometimes a totally different form of game-play altogether, which just happens to use the basic game for its built-in capabilities.
The result is an incredible richness of innovative, shocking, sometimes downright funny games. The popular “Counter-Strike” started life as a “mod,” a modification of another game. So did some other name-brand shooters. And for every serious game that lands on shelves, a host of mods make them filled with your favorite movie characters, or filled with spell casting instead of shooting, or, perplexingly, puzzles instead of fighting.
You may never have played a mod. But chances are you’ve played a game that’s used technology developed for one. Publishers have the right to prevent them, as Tecmo is doing (the forum has been taken offline already). But maybe it’s in their best interests, long term, not to do so.
No business like game business
Here comes Big Hollywood.
The profit margins on video games run 25 percent or so, about triple that of major movies, so entertainment companies are eyeing the games business.
News Corp., the owner of Twentieth Century Fox, said last month it’s shopping for a game company, as is the Walt Disney Co., which said it may buy several developers. Viacom exec Sumner Redstone is heavily invested in Midway Games, which made “Fear and Respect” and “Area 51,” now under development as movies by Viacom’s Paramount division.
Based on how bad most licensed games have been, this news makes me want to cower under my desk.
‘Half-life 2’ tops the chart
Speaking of “Half-Life 2,” Valve and publisher Vivendi are celebrating its rise to No. 1 on the NPD Group’s PC games sales chart for the week ending Jan. 29. It was followed by “The Sims 2” and, once again, the online world game “World of Warcraft,” which continues to set worldwide records for game sales.
Others in the top 10: “Roller Coaster Tycoon 3,” “The Sims Deluxe,” “Microsoft Zoo Tycoon 2” and the excellent strategy-lite title “Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth.”
‘Gran Turismo’ release set
Gamers, start your engines. The hottest racing title of the year – “Gran Turismo 4” – has a firm release date.
The game will hit stores Tuesday – followed shortly afterwards, I predict, by a storm of critical acclaim. It feels a little sterile to drive compared to some of the other stellar racing titles to hit the market in the past couple of years, but there’s no arguing with the detail: “Gran Turismo” sets the standard for accurate reproductions of cars, their handling, their sounds and their racetracks.
It’ll be rated E (Everyone) and retail for about $50.