Archive for September, 2008
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
EA Suffers from EDS
Despite rumors to the contrary, Electronic Arts remains mostly retarded.
I’ve been waiting with baited breath for Spore to come out. Ever since hearing about it, it has tingled all ninety-eight of my god complexes that I prune and tend to like a delicate garden of ego-centricity. Spore, if it lives up to even half of its hype, is going to bake bread and cure cancer as far as games go. I’m honestly hoping it will replace Portal for me as best all-time game.
Not since SimEarth has Wil Wright seemingly been as involved in the holistic design of a game, and I’m jonesing to grip this creative masterpiece of his and squeeze it for every last drop of intellectual entertainment. Unfortunately, EA is there to provide a fanciful barrier to my enjoyment.
I heard recently that one could actually pre-order the game and in fact pre-download 99% of the thing before the September 7th release date. A digital distribution, with a pre-load feature? Brilliant! That means that the intensity of downloaders is spread out over a wider period of time, reducing the ungodly strain on release day! What a marvelous concept! Oh goodness, only five days to go! I should go ahead and get that puppy started, so on release day for Spore all I have to do is download that last 1% and I’m ready to go with the install.
I arrive at the checkout screen at the EA store, after spot-checking other distributors for potential cross-promotions or freebies. Nothing enticing. Oh. Wait. Where’d that come from?
“Extended Download Service” $5.99
Weird. I didn’t add that. Ahh, there’s a little “What’s This?” next to it. Clickypoo.
What is the Extended Download Service?
Think of this as your digital safety net for those unexpected occurrences - like your hard drive frying or a virus infection. EDS means that with the purchase of your digital product, we’ll keep a copy of your file for two full years, so you don’t have to. You’ll gain peace of mind knowing that we have your program stored and ready for you to download again at your convenience.
A little extra protection on your order to keep your products safe? Why not!
Waitasec. Why would you be keeping “my” file “safe” for “me”? I’m buying the game from you. I’m paying the same amount that it would cost me to get it off the shelf, where you, the publisher, pay premiums for shelf space, packaging, stocking, shipping, and other fun. Standard purchase is only 6 months. So, if I get a new computer in 6 months, I have to buy another copy of the game? 6 months is all you are willing to keep “GREYPAWN BOUGHT THIS GAME” in a text file on your servers for? Is there a hard drive space issue at EA that I’m not aware of? Doesn’t “EDS” stand for Erectile Dysfunction Syndrome”?
And if I give you the six dollars, you will keep it for me for TWO WHOLE years? A vast 24 whole actual months of like, cognizance that I did indeed buy and register my game with you, and spared you, the publisher, the expense of a hard copy version by downloading it through my own broadband connection?
On the 7th, Sunday, I will be headed to Gamestop to pick up my physical copy of Spore. Someone at EA should set someone else down and load up a little digital distribution program called “Steam” and show it to them. Gamersgate, Direct2Drive, and even the nickel and diming of Xbox Markeplace don’t compare to this level of downright stupidity on the part of EA.
In other news, Warhammer Online will also be available as a pre-loaded direct download. As a special bonus for when you pre-order, Mark Jacobs himself will come to your house and kick you in the genitals before killing your cat and having sex with your mother.
Monday, September 1st, 2008
The Long Count
Now, I’m not one much for doomsday prophecies, lord knows there are certainly more than enough of them out there. Something about the December 2012 termination of the Mayan Long Count unsettles me at the core though.
For those who don’t know, I won’t get too technical on the topic, there’s more than enough shows on the History channel and websites a-plenty about the long count. Summed up, it is the Mayan celestial calendar, meticulously crafted by their astronomer-priests and accurate back to its start date 3,000 some odd years ago. Problem is, it stops at December 2012. It runs out of time, increments of 5,125 years. This wouldn’t be so bad, if it didn’t also coincide with a galactic solstice. That’s a once in a civilization type of event.
The Long Count “final day” unnerves me. It has too many things riding along with it. The Mayans weren’t arbitrary about their astronomy or religion the way we are. Chiseling something into stone and setting up vast city-sized astronomical tools wasn’t something you would toy around it. The Mayans were crazy-advanced - we still don’t know how they built much of what they left behind. December 21st, 2012. There was no second-guessing that one. They looked up at the stars and saw there was a definitive end to things. Why would you abruptly stop counting after five-thousand years? It runs contrary to the personality of anyone who would operate as a keeper or guardian of humanity’s continued existence.
Personally, my problem isn’t so much with an end. If Earth has to go, I’m fine with that. The issue I take is that we haven’t come far enough to exist independently of such a calamity. We don’t have colonies on Mars or the Moon that can watch in horror at the terrestrial impact of a million asteroids, or whatever terrifying fate might await. If in fact we have only four more years to go as a species, we’ve squandered the opportunity as an advanced lifeform. Without a legacy, humanity leaves nothing behind. A blip in an isolated solar system - a failed experiment in God’s back yard.
I really do hope that we get a chance to prove our worth as a lifeform, tenacious and creative. I hope that the Long Count terminates simply because Mayan astronomers could not see past the mountains of astronomical or functional prophecy into whatever bold new future humanity intends to bring forth.