I wrote an article a few weeks back on the conflicting claims about the effects of piracy on the PC games market. A friend then recommended to me a very interesting article by Tadhg Kelly in GameSetWatch, arguing that piracy itself can be a beneficial marketing technique and that building relationships with gamers is more profitable in the long term than viewing games development as what he calls a “content business” where the game’s content has value.

My intent here is to show several reasons to view his arguments with suspicion. I think that a certain model of game does lend itself to his view of piracy and that this model (the free-to-play model) has produced some excellent games (League of Legends and Bloodline Champions are two shining examples), some enjoyable, but ultimately more average, games (Champions Online or Dreamlords: Resurrection) as well as some really bland stuff that is often fairly ruthless in getting your money (a lot of Facebook games belong here). While I believe that the gems that this model produced has clearly justifies its existence (the majority of the non-World of Warcraft MMO market runs on this model), it should not ever become the sole gaming market model and that’s one part of what Kelly seems to be saying.

Before he talks about this though, he makes several assumptions to which I take objection and are contentious. He writes:

“[Most game developers are] seeing their business as a content business, where the content is the thing that has value. This is not the case.

The games industry, like all the arts, is about finding and interacting with fans, so that value comes from a relationship. As we slowly move into the post-platform, single-franchise future, understanding the difference between the two is crucial.”

His emphasis on content business and relationship are the crux here. He describes most developers as belonging to the former view, that they create a certain piece of content that has value and attempt to sell it whereas the ideal is the latter. I think there is both an overt and a tacit assumption here that I want to knock out.

First, the overt assumption is that games development is like creating a piece of art. While a lot of ardent games are art types will treat this idea as sacrosanct and often not even debate any of its critics properly, their belief extends exactly zero metres beyond the borders of people already keeping the faith. I would not defend the idea of games as art, even as I ardently defend their value and worth, because even if games could be art (which, in their thousands of years of existence, they still fail to be even as younger things like cinema and photography take up the mantle of art uncontroversially), I don’t want aesthetic concerns to ever override what I want from games: to be entertained and enjoy myself.

The more subtle assumption is that this view between games as a content business and games as creating relationships is presented as a dichotomy, that there is no ability to view games as a content business while building relationships with customers. I spoke in my last article on piracy of games like Gratuitous Space Battles and The Void where the designers did create an outreach to customers, but did not ever assume piracy to be a good thing. They did view their content as being stolen, but seized an opportunity to build relationships and encourage sales.

It’s clearly not the case that you need to abandon the view, as Kelly recommends, that there is value to your content. I find it borderline offensive, even, that a man whose work seems to consist largely in basic microtransaction-based Facebook games like Soccer Hero has the audacity to tell Ice-Pick Lodge or Positech Games that their work has no value.

Kelly goes on to make an analogy between the circulation and sale of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man and sale of sequels in gaming. Piracy of originals, he argues, could raise awareness of potential sequels in which people are more likely to invest. He compares this to the higher success of the second part of Paine’s Rights of Man in terms of sales than the first part despite the necessity of familiarity with the first in order to understand the more successful second.

The problem I have with this analogy is that it simply doesn’t require piracy in the equation. Borrowing games, watching friends play games, playing them with your friends, these are what are needed and there is another strong argument against DRM within this, but not piracy. Paine’s first book was not widely known because of piracy of the text, but because people shared the physical medium of the text. Piracy never came into it.

Beyond this, he moves into another suspect analysis of the industry. He writes that the industry commits the “one shot fallacy” which is that developers seem to think of games in an atomistic sense. They don’t talk of games with sequel potential unless the game has been successful enough to merit sequels. My only response to this at what game industry is Kelly actually looking? Has he not looked at one of the overriding criticisms of Activision? Activision has long been criticised for only seeing games in terms of long-term exploitable intellectual property, it effectively tried to bury Brutal Legend because it didn’t think it would produce sequels, just compete with its own IP. This view of games in terms of sequel potential is simply not a healthy approach and Activision is the proof one needs of that.

Furthermore, let’s look at the sort of model he suggests, building social features into a game that requires purchasing features (such as support or extra content) after the game is already in the hands of the gamers. This is effectively the F2P model and that’s all well and good except the fact I don’t want every game having this model and neither do the majority of gamers. One of the key criticisms on Metacritic from users of Portal 2 was that it had an in-game store for a game that required a base payment.

I can take this further, one criticism a friend made of recent versions of Team Fortress 2 was that it now has boxes that contains items which you need to pay to unlock and get the contents. This is, in an otherwise great game, a rather awful feature. Even if this was a game where there was no initial payment, is that what we would would be happy with in every game?

Would we be happy where every game is freely distributed only to then get its money from you via social features and in-game quirks like the locked box idea of games such as Team Fortress 2 or Allods Online? It’s nice that the F2P model exists, but it occupies a niche, I simply don’t want every game to work on this model because the F2P model has produced a few gems and mounds of rubbish Facebook apps that I have to keep blocking.

Of course, the other part of this is that copying the raw install files for League of Legends or Bloodline Champions for a friend is not piracy, it’s legitimate distribution (unless I messed with the files somehow). What he describes as piracy is in fact, perfectly legal under the F2P model and not piracy in any sense of the word. Where it would be piracy is if I gave a friend an unlocked version of either game with all the characters unlocked already (apparently, with League of Legends, unlocking extra skins illegally was once possible). Something tells me that if I distributed genuinely pirated copies of Tadhg Kelly’s game, all the social features and extra content promised after the gamer started playing already unlocked, he might have a bit more of a problem with what I was doing than his article would suggest. That is piracy.

Developed by: Lockpick Entertainment
Published by: Paradox Interactive
Out now
Reviewed on: 22nd March, 2011.

Presentation: The graphics look a bit dated compared to what else is out there, but it is nothing too awful. The interface has been updated since Paradox picked up the game and is quite intuitive upon first appearance, I didn’t have too much difficulty finding my way around. The sounds likewise are basic, although the music is good background for the theme and setting.

Atmosphere: The game combines aspects of two genres, MMORPGs and RTS elements with some out of battle 4X for good measure. There is a sense in which a lot of these aspects are still quite embryonic and hardcore fans of a single one of those genres might be pulled away by the lack of depth. However, what it does have from those genres is very solid and well-integrated. It does seem very slow-paced compared to some RTS games though.

Control and Mechanics: Controls use only a mouse with some light keyboard use being mostly optional. No one should have any great difficulty mastering the controls here. The mechanics are moderately simple and not too difficult to grasp quickly and the standard MMO divisions of PvE and PvP are there, as well as trading and item shop purchases.

Who should buy this: Given that it’s a free-to-play game, anyone who finds the concepts appealing, but specifically: those who prefer slower-paced RTS games with more tactical thought in later play. Those who like combinations of RTS and 4X games, with the emphasis more on RTS play.

Who should avoid it: Those who prefer faster pacing in RTS games, those who prefer more complexity in their RTS or 4X games. Those who don’t want a slow build-up to later gameplay. Those who don’t like players being able to pay to get an in-game edge over other players.

If I have to give a score: An interesting game with a lot of potential for growth. There’s some innovation, but nothing to really make it stand out yet. 2.5/4

Review

Dreamlords: Resurrection is the third iteration of this game, picked up by Paradox Interactive after the original publishers abandoned the project. It’s quite an interesting experience because at first I didn’t really see the game as having any strong pull to it, despite the considerable number of players on at any given time. I’m not entirely sure how much that has shifted, but there certainly is something to the game to recommend it. It’s a F2P MMO and so is in a rather crowded market filled with games like the entertaining and unique Champions Online all the way to the very banal Shaiya (a game which, as far as I can tell, seems to be entirely about two goddesses in a lesbian BDSM relationship).

The plot is nothing special, many years ago a race known as the Thul appeared, horrid beastmen who hungrily attacked everything in sight. The humans divided into the Covenant, a group of theocratic warrior-knights and the Nihilim, a group of magic users who disagreed with the religion of their fellows. An act of magic designed to stop the Thul instead ripped the world apart and it now exists as collections of floating islands. New threats emerge as nightmares from the dreams of previous eras come to life and threaten the survivors.

The player begins by creating his character, known as a dreamlord. Each dreamlord is a born leader, composed of the souls of long dead defenders and leaders from times past and each must take control of his or her own island, known as a patria. Character creation is very basic and involves choosing your character’s gender and colour (each character looks like a glowing mass of light formed into a humanoid shape) and then his affiliation between the Thul, Covenant or Nihilim. This bit is important as each faction has its own strengths and there is no going back once the selection is made.

I mean that bit too, each account is allowed one character and you won’t get to change your allegiance until the end of the era (or delete the character). This is unusual given that many players in MMOs like to test the waters with different races, classes and factions before making a permanent choice and often have more than one character anyway. It’s a factor of the game that’s not made as clear during character generation as it could be, so be warned if you are going to give it a go.

Once you have done character generation, you are thrown into the tutorials and I found the tutorial system (along with the optional advisor system) very well thought out and constructed, and there were not many situations where I felt the interface to be alien. All in all, I was able to grasp the controls and mechanics very quickly.

What you do notice is that the graphics look a little dated, but this is largely because the game’s graphics have not seen many updates since the first release back in 2006. The game is still frequently updated and now sports many improvements, both in functionality and bug-fixing. The game traditional has been a more single-player orientated affair, alongside the PvP battles. What this new game has is the ability for co-operative PvE missions later on, something that was truly lacking from the original game.

It mixes elements of RTS, RPG and 4X gaming very well. While it is the case that it does not go too deeply into any of these elements, it does make the transition and interaction between the genres seamless. The 4X, for example, is largely about unlocking new technologies in tech trees for each building. These technologies cover everything from the weapons which with you can equip your troops to the expansion and growth of your cities.

Levelling up is interesting, you have a level system based on generally how tough you and your army are as well as a ranking based on the number of followers you have. As you collect more soul power from gems and items, your influence expands and so does your worker-base and your power. This of course affects the size and power of your army in RTS battles, which often yield items themselves useful to your city’s power and growth.

The game does have a very slow pace, however. This will scare off many RTS fans who love more of a rush into combat. Later levels can get very hard and require more thinking as the troops you start with are often all you are going to get and the game becomes more cerebral than simply overrunning enemies with vast numbers of troops. It will be a while into the game before you will even field enough support to have two units of troops assisting your dreamlord and it’s fairly far into the tech tree that you get improved elite versions of the basic infantry, assault and ranged troops you are given.

Overall, I would say that if you are a fan of more careful, plotted gameplay and want a bit more direct activity than what a classic like Europa Universalis 3 will give you then you should really give this game a try. It certainly has a lot of potential that, with a steady stream of development, will turn into something that rises above the more mundane MMO offerings out there. I’m not sure it pulled me in enough that I’d still be playing it six months from now, but I have to salute the fact that it is clearly trying to go somewhere new and make a new concept in MMO gaming work, let’s hope it succeeds.

Dreamlords: Resurrection is out now, client download and registration is available via their website.