Surviving the Steam Summer Sale

Way back when I started this blog, one of my first articles with any significant content was talking about how great Steam is for unemployed gamers. You don't have much money, but man, have you got some free time. Even looking for a job as hard as you can, there's still more time for gaming than the average working person has, and sales, especially of the deep price cut variety, can help with the "not a whole lot of disposable income" end of the equation. As a veteran now of Steam Sales, I can share my learned strategies and talk a little about my purchases this sale week, and how they revisit both the Piracy and the DRM issues.

I've never been so excited about online shopping before. Twice a year, this is actually a legit event.
 I sometimes spend more time shopping for games during this than I do playing them.

Steam Sale Strategy Guide:.


1. Be patient.  Whatever the game you want is, it is probably on sale starting the first day of the sale. However, that first-day price might not be the lowest it'll go for the duration of the sale. In general, until the sale is over, you should wait until whatever you want is a featured item, whether that means the Daily Deal or, this Summer, the Flash Deal.  The Daily/Flash deal price is the lowest it'll go during the sale, and if it is never a featured item, you can still buy it at the normal sale price on the last day of the sale. Patience is rewarded.

2. Participate in the activities when you can. Whether you are completing achievements for tickets or presents, working on a Badge, or voting on the next Community Choice Sale, in general, there is some level of reward for the customer in being a part of the event. It is a simple deal, Valve wants you to be tempted as often as possible by looking at the store, so you are rewarded for doing so. Effective on all counts.

3. Watch for DRM, and decide if the deal is worth the hassle. Even though Steam itself is effectively an anti-piracy scheme, some publishers just won't let their own measures go.  SecuROM, Games for Windows Live, both... personally, if the game is good enough and the price is low enough, I'll deal with it, but be aware before you buy.

4. Check Package Deals and Individual Game Prices. Always. Sometimes, even when a game is on Daily Deal, buying it as part of a package saves money, or for a small amount more gets more games or DLC (Downloadable Content) by the publisher. Conversely, sometimes the package is featured, and you only want one item from it, but while the package is on special, each item within it is also cheaper.

My haul from this year was pretty good. I bought a lot in the first few days, as almost everything I really wanted on Steam was a featured item very early in the sale. I bought the Arkham City complete pack (Arkham Asylum GOTY, Arkham City + all DLC and Gotham City Impostors,) The digital deluxe editions of both the Witcher 1 and 2, Back to the Future by Telltale Games, and Crusader Kings 2. With this, I got  a little bit of everything I enjoy in terms of genre, and picked up games I'd rented or even pirated in the past with additional content.  Not only did Steam get me to virtually stop pirating games, but even the little piracy I've done in the last few years, I've evened the accounts at least in my own conscience by purchasing the titles in question.

I started playing this when I got it, and 10 hours vanished. Politics, assassinations,
birth and death and succession and war... and there is a Game of Thrones total conversion mod.

What is interesting to me is that all the intrusive DRM didn't stop me from getting a pirated copy of a game within a few days of launch.  A reasonably priced service from a company I like quite a bit got me to eventually buy those same titles, and endure the copy-protection hassles as a legit customer. That seems backwards. It tells me something that developers should take to heart, though.  Price motivates ethical behavior in a way that even the world's best DRM cannot, and treating your customers well means that the loyalty you've built up in that relationship will even make some of the most shameless pirates into good customers.  Don't punish the honest with expensive and ineffective means to fight piracy, translate the lack of licensing fees for that garbage into a lower price-point and build a rapport with your customer, and they'll stop pirating on their own.

The OUYA – Open Source Console: What it is, and what it isn't.

Video game news sites, blogs and discussion boards are all talking about the OUYA, and it really is a story that is too big to ignore.  Crowdsourced for its initial funding by Kickstarter (which deserves its own article here, soon) in only four days, people have pledged $4.5 million to see this thing happen.  The concept behind the console is that the Big Three are hard and expensive to develop for, and the companies that manufacture them lock down the hardware and software so the user can't modify the units themselves after purchase.  Many talented developers have stopped even trying to create games for consoles, focusing on PC or moblie markets instead, where it is cheaper and easier to get going. The OUYA will run on a version of the Android OS, have HDMI output to a TV and will be moddable and hackable out of the box. The SDK (Software Development Toolkit) will be designed to make it easy and cheap to get games onto the platform, which should attract developers who don't want to deal with the hassle of breaking into console gaming's current walled gardens.

Controller will have analog sticks, triggers, and a touchpad, but doesn't actually exist yet.

I've read a lot of reaction to the Kickstarter campaign, and the vast majority of folks who are participating in either the hype-bandwagon or the hipster-backlash for or against the OUYA seem to have some of the details wrong.  They don't know what the OUYA is, but they either think it is the second coming, destined to immediately take out the Playstation, XBox and Wii platforms... or they have a laundry list of criticisms that are only partially grounded in reality. There are a lot more invalid assumptions and just plain wrong assertions coming from critics of the OUYA, but in order to get to the bottom of this, I need to talk a little bit about what the OUYA is, and more importantly, what it isn't.

Anyone dropping $100 today because they believe they are buying a piece of hardware that is comparable to even current-generation consoles is misinformed. The technical specifications of the unit are a little bit better than a bleeding-edge expensive smartphone. That said, a phone with those specs is $650 with a 2-year contract and has some serious limitations on what it can deliver as a gaming platform.  There currently are no final designs for the console or its controller, and it won't launch with AAA-style titles, the hardware won't support it, and the type of developer that is capable of delivering that sort of game is already inside the existing walled gardens, and doesn't need what the OUYA is selling.  All games that release for the system will be required to have a free component, like a smartphone app, with subscription or microtransactions in place, emulating the Free2Play model. Let that sink in. All games are free, but will likely feature a "cash shop" or something similar.

That said, without any 100% confirmed titles at launch (though Mojang has strongly suggested that Minecraft will be made available), and games that are more likely to have design influenced by the existence of microtransactions, the OUYA doesn't look a lot like an XBox. Critics have seized on this, and the Android platform as proof that the console will primarily support the sorts of games currently found on the Android Market (Google Play) and iTunes.  A $100 console that plays Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja doesn't sound as much like a game changer.  However, it is short-sighted to believe that developers won't line up to make games for this with over 30,000 pre-orders in a few days from customers, and the Developer's Kit console pre-orders (400+ of them) sold out in that same time. It is a fair assumption that while we'll see some shovelware, at least a few games that manage to make a subscription or microtransaction model work will be available at launch.

I like Canabalt, love Minecraft, but they will need a solid launch library that consists of new titles that are hits, or
that can be hits on their platform.

A common complaint I've seen online is that the technical specifications are weak for a console and that they won't be able to produce units in order to retail the console at $100.  These statements come from comparing specs to existing consoles and price to smartphone components. The test of the OUYA as a concept is what sort of performance they can get out of their advertised hardware once full games are running on the system. I'm not worried about the hardware price, as there is no reasonable comparison between phones and PCs or consoles, dispersing heat in a small handheld and making components tiny enough to fit inside is pricey, mass-producing dedicated boxes to run Android... not so much. Downloadable games in a console which is basically a PC with a GUI and a controller evokes a negative comparison to the Phantom Console from 2004 that nearly ruined Infinium Labs. In the last 8 years, however, many of the technical limitations that made the Phantom famous vaporware have worked themselves out, most notably massively improved bandwidth speeds making streaming content, even games, possible.

I've talked a lot about what the OUYA isn't... but there are a few things that it is, or could be, that folks are missing out on.  A moddable/rootable box can be a 1-stop console for emulation of everything from the NES to the Playstation 2, with all the legally grey caveats that emulators and ROMs have dealt with.  It can be yet another box for streaming Netflix or any number of music services with nothing but existing apps on the Google Play store today.  It may not be able to challenge even this generation's consoles on day one, but it could absolutely take on the Xbox Live Marketplace, PSN and Wii Points stores if enough developers with fresh ideas back the idea, letting their best games rise to the top naturally. Even without a massive launch lineup, the confidence that comes with the number of people behind this project makes $99 a more than fair price.





Investing in the OUYA today is supporting a group of established industry professionals who are rolling the dice on coming out with something that could really change the console market. Even if it doesn't deliver on the best of its promises, what you could have today is fairly reasonable... and with the right software, and if the hardware is stable and relatively quick given its limitations, what could be there tomorrow sounds plausible, all hype put to the side.

Review of: The Amazing Spider-Man (In 3-D)

When I heard they were rebooting the Spider-Man film franchise, within 5 years of Sam Raimi's trilogy of films, I rolled my eyes.  Sure, Spider-Man 3 was moderately awful, with subpar interpretations of Venom and a shoehorned in Gwen Stacy, with the most interesting villain (Sandman) sidelined into a subplot that barely went anywhere. And "Emo Peter Parker" and his big dance number... the less said about that, the better. I originally had no intention of going to see the newest incarnation of Marvel's flagship hero franchise.  A few things along the way changed my mind, and I went to go see it yesterday, and I'm prepared to review it.  First, Andrew Garfield's introduction to the panel at Comic-Con, his gasping, stuttering speech about what the character meant to him as a fan made me interested to see what that actor could do with the character of Peter Parker.  Then, the announcement of the casting of Emma Stone came out.  Like most people, I'm most familiar with her as a redhead in film, so I thought "Oh. Mary Jane Watson."  When I heard that she was going to her natural hair color of blonde to portray Gwen Stacy in a fashion true to the comics, I was sold. I'd give The Amazing Spider-Man a shot.

Apparently, the reboot happened because Sam Raimi refused to
continue the franchise, not being allowed the time he'd need to not make Spider-Man 4 not suck.

I decided to see the film in 3-D, since the showtimes for that were most convenient for me, and my wife (who can't see 3-D) had no interest in the reboot. I'd privately hated the whole 3-D trend in blockbuster movies, but, to be fair, I'd never really given it an honest chance.  Now that I have, I can say from my own personal experience, that I despise the current 3-D filmmaking fad.  I hate the gimmicky shots that are included in otherwise decent filmmaking, I  hate the blurry, half-assed effect of some of the scenes meant to showcase the technology... I don't mind it so much when it is subtle depth-of-field stuff, but it rarely is.  If you already hate 3-D, this film won't change your mind.  On to the review of the film itself.

 The first film in any (re)launch of a superhero franchise basically is split into the origin story and the first fight with a supervillain. For anyone who just wants the quick 'n dirty summary of my thoughts on the movie, The Amazing Spider-Man knocks the origin portion of its story out of the park, and falls a bit flat on the supervillain battle portion.  The beginning two-thirds of the story are good enough that I recommend the movie overall, but this falls into the category of "couldn't stick the landing."  Andrew Garfield is flat-out awesome as Peter Parker. He captures the awkwardness and quiet geekiness of the teenager who feels out of place wherever he is.  He's the "outcast" sort of geeky kid who manages to get in trouble with authority without any sense of edgy rebellion, and still gets ignored by girls and beaten up by bullies.  Making him a skater would normally make me groan as an attempt to "modernize" a classic character, but it works for this Parker, and translates well into his specific style of acrobatic tricks once he gets his powers.

The best thing about the new Spider-Man is the great casting of the two leads.

The best parts of the film are when Peter gets his powers, but before any conflict with the Lizard. From his accidental use of spider-sense to protect himself instinctively to fighting street thugs while cracking jokes, he is the best representation of Spider-Man on screen in these moments.  The confidence he finds behind the mask, and the drive he has to do the right thing driven by responsibility and guilt are spot-on. There is an awesome article I read a few months back that makes the case for Spider-Man being an even better hero than Batman, with a point-by-point comparison between the two icons. I still prefer the Dark Knight, but the points made in that article (found here) regarding Spidey are proven through the excellent portrayal in the entire beginning/middle of the movie. You can get the rest of the film wrong, and get that right and have a very good Spider-Man film.

It is unfortunate, then, that the rest of the film just isn't very good.  Rhys Ifans is great as Dr. Curt Connors, but after he becomes The Lizard, special effects and style trounce substance, and much of the tragic quality of this villain is lost in the flash.  Denis Leary is wasted, basically playing himself as police Captain George Stacy, in contrast to Emma Stone who is great as his daughter Gwen.  The biggest shame is that the over-the-top, effects-heavy and video-gamey action sequences that dominate the last act of the story are predictable and without any charm or personality.  We're no longer shocked when Peter is beaten up, his costume ripped and bloody since we've seen it before. No longer inspired when normal folks come to his aid even though the city inexplicably seems to consider him a greater threat than criminals and supervillains, we've seen that, too.  I wanted more of the Spider-Man who I saw fighting crime at the beginning, being a total smart-ass. It is clear in the comics that Parker cracks jokes partially as a defense mechanism to hide the fact that physical confrontation with dangerous criminals is scary, even if you have super-powers.





I want to see more of this incarnation of Spider-Man, who has the web-shooters he built himself filled with cartridges of web-fluid, and whose origin is, in many ways, a truer vision than Sam Raimi's take on it ten years ago. I want to see more of Gwen Stacy, and I hope the franchise has the balls to lead her to her eventual tragic fate. I want to see less of action sequences meant to showcase 3-D technology or to preview how awesome the video game is going to be.  The Lizard was almost there in moments when the movie wasn't just showcasing his physical strength and agility, but the mark was missed, and I hope the same won't happen with the Green Goblin. Norman Osborn is mentioned, but not seen, in this film and the mystery of what, exactly happened to Peter Parker's parents bookends the film in setting up both Peter's childhood and the eventual sequel.