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Where to begin, I could go on all sorts of tangents about the events this weekend, but of course I didn’t experience them first hand. Like many of the residents of the internets we can only go by what we see on TV, what we read on the news and twitter streams and everything else.

Protesting and the right to protest is something that goes with any political event. When done peacefully and even better when the people protesting have a coherent message that while not being grounded in reality, can at least provoke thought. But such is never the case, protesting and events such as this always draws out the “anarchists” and “hooligans” that use any opportunity to raise some hell.

I don’t feel bad for the protesters that got scooped up along with the shit disturbers. You took your chances going out there, even with your good intentions you should have know you were risking getting scooped up. Hell, many of the real activists who do use peaceful methods and a coherent messages expect that they could get arrested, some of them even crave it. It gives them some “street cred” or something worth whining about.

For me, if I felt passionate enough about and issues to protest about it, I would do so certainly knowing the risks. However, the moment some asshat(s) decided to start smashing property, or clashing with the police, i would take my peaceful ass elsewhere in a hurry. Standing by when such vandalism and acts of civil disobedience occurs is no different than condoning it. Just because you’re not involved in it, standing around watching it happen is no better than taking part in it. You want to be recognized as not being a part of it, move away from it, quickly.

I have been trying to find the various messages that were being delivered from the protesters, but for the most part it seems all I could catch was those whom are protesting Afghanistan and Iraq. Protesting war is all well and dandy, futile, but all well and good and is something worth standing up for, even if it doesn’t have any impact what so ever. Protesting against capitialism amuses me of course. There is no really good political system, mainly because any system used is still being used by people and people invariable manage to screw something up.

It sucks to be poor, but blaming capitalism for it, is rather stupid, as I said on Twitter last night, even if we weren’t a capitalist country, there would still be people richer than you. Yes we need better regulations against big industry, we need better environmental actions, but at the same time, without industry we’d lose a built of our economic power and more jobs than i care to calculate. Things could be better, but they could be a helluva lot worse.

You want your message to get across to the world, be proactive about it, make it coherent, make it educated and use methods people will respect.

Smashing up shop windows, throwing bricks at banks and cop cars, setting things on fire does absolutely nothing good. Oh other than pissing people off of course, and perhaps that’s the point. Terrorism either internationally or domestically generally does not advance a cause, just piss people off and push them to rally against you. Destruction of private and public policy is terrorism, in a micro scale perhaps, but the fact remains.

We have freedom of speech, we don’t however have freedom of chaotic destruction. Disrupting the places of work for many of the citizens we want to rally behind our causes only makes innocent people suffer and makes you look like an asshat.

Do I think the police response in Toronto was excessive, in some cases probably so, overall, no. Yes you might get arrested and yes you might be innocent, and yes it’s an imposition of your time, but if you’re innocent, the only thing you loose is time, if you’re guilty you get what you deserve. It could be worse, at least there aren’t tanks in the streets and live rounds being sprayed at the crowds.

If you want to say something, be responsible and mature about it, educate yourself, so you can make a stand and be respected for it. There is nothing wrong with differing opinions, it’s about all about how you deliver it.

The Subscription plus Item mall debate is something that rages on and on these days. People come up with witty equations to illustrate the differences. Comparing the price of; (Insert unrelated product here) to the price of a game subscription. It’s all very cute and all, but the primary arguments, generally aren’t based completely in reality. A lot of the associated costs of an MMO gets left out, or blatantly ignored.

Is $15 bucks too much for a subscription?

Not really, yes different currencies translate into more or less, that goes without saying. Yes the cost of servers and bandwidth might be down, but that’s not all that’s being paid for, neither is Customer service the sum total of what you’re paying for.

Something that seems to be forgotten is that just like Single Player games (which you used to only pay for once, but with DLC you now pay for expanded content) is the cost of development for the games. For several years games are in design and development, internally tested, worked on and so forth. In the case of triple A titles, that costs a huge amount of money.

Designers, Programmers, Artists, Animators, Writers, Voice Actors, Server Techs, etc, all these people working to make the games people are complaining about, get paid to make the games. This can be a massive investment for a company, and the “box price” and the subscription fees, even the item mall content being added to sub model games go to recoup the money spent to make the game.

But beyond that, with MMO’s or at least with the good ones, new content and patches don’t come out of thin air, the above mentioned group of game staff, plus GM’s, plus Customer service people, plus community management all have to be paid to get all the new content/updates/patches created/made/tested before it gets released.

Using the “Game of main comparison” WoW, Blizzard spent millions developing it before it even launched and they spend more and more for expansions, updates and the like. Now yes they are making a pant load of money but when you factor in original and continuing development costs, continued operation and repair costs, corporate tax and more, that cuts down on actual profit.

Of course all these companies are interested in making profit; no company can survive without it. Not just because profit is good, but also because profit translates into capital for the next game they create/build/launch/operate.

I am not a happy go luck fan of Item malls, not because I don’t like paying for extra content, but because of the kind of crap that usually ends up in them. Items that unbalance a game, uber xp scrolls and the like that those who can afford love and those who can’t loathe.

Looking at STO (which yes I currently play as you all know) which was in development for something like 4+ years, that’s all that money spent, hoping that it would attract Star Trek fans, and gaming fans alike with a new experience. Yes there is the box fee or digital download cost, there’s the subscription cost be it monthly, 3 months, 6 months, or the special year or life time sub cost. Also they do have the C-Shop, which presently only contains 2 items, a playable Federation Klingon or Ferengi.

They need to make back all the money spent designing, developing, and testing the game, then make money to continue to operate, expand, and repair the game. Continuing with this example, the Staff for STO has already said in different places, that how Cryptic’s other games are operated in price models and how STO will be modeled isn’t going to be the same thing. The Borg update was free, and I get the sense other expansion content will likely be free also.

So looking at the overall subscription + item mall model, when you factor in all the costs either spent in development or going forward, it makes sense the company needs to generate revenue. Yes not everyone can or will pay for stuff in the item mall, which goes without saying. People play F2P games all the time without buying a thing. They however balance out with those who do buy things and usually spend an insane amount of money doing it.

How is that any better?

I’m not really sure it is, or different for that matter. The only differences between F2P and Subscription based games is usually quality (though that may be starting to change) and the word “Free”. It might be free to play the basic game, which is great for players, but to get the most out of the game experience you have to spend money. With P2P games you pay money to get the main experience, but there’s also the occasional bonus goodies in the Item mall, usually nothing that is really required, generally in the P2P world these are just nice little bonuses, and not really impactful to the experience over all. (Broad strokes I know)

Expansions on the other hand, yes some companies will make you pay for expansions, but considering an expansion is usually quite a bit of additional content, this makes sense. When of course, the expansion is priced reasonably and is worth buying. Any gamer who plays the Sims franchise will tell you that not always is the expansion worth buying, not because of the price, but because they, for whatever reason, don’t like the content. (Generally)

But you’re still paying for a higher end content package, not just a quick update patch, which costs more to create and develop.

If you want to really argue about this issue, at least be intelligent about it and do some research. Debate, discussion, and dissent is vital to keep the industry moving forward, but just complaining for the sake of complaining doesn’t do anything short of making you look rather stupid and waste the time of those whom participate in it.

My grandma used to fill my ears with the cliché “Money doesn’t grow on trees” Well in Gaming, neither does new content, expansions, and patches.

When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

— Revelation 6:5-6 NIV

After an interesting conversation during a call tonight, and some deep thought of my own, it does make me wonder where the industry is headed these days. With Social Media sites on the rise as gaming platforms, primarily for the sake of this article, Facebook. As well as a lot of companies now gearing their efforts towards development and publishing to make use of these platforms it has me thinking.

I’ve had a lot of people comment to me that they’re finding more and more games that just aren’t catching their interest anymore, or are down right boring. I’ve noticed this myself that a lot of times games aren’t really innovating anything new, just putting on shiny new clothes.

Of course there are plenty of exceptions to this, but not as many as there once were. And to be candid, a lot of the games found on Facebook are without a doubt, boring as crap, yet they get millions of players daily and the market is growing constantly with more and more companies and indie teams getting into the act.

Is the industry headed for another crash before we see a renaissance of creativity and an explosion of innovative creation across the board of games? Honestly, I don’t know, but at the same time as more companies pull away from making console games and of course the continuing stigma of PC gaming aside from the MMO market. (Which is constantly being accused of being clones upon clones upon clones of this game or that game?)

Where is the industry headed?

Where will our new gaming experiences going to coming from?

Has the bubble burst again?

Tough questions; and maybe a bit of an alarmist bent to my thinking as I look over the scope of the gaming space these days. A lot of companies have been cutting stuff, shutting down, restructuring, and changing direction, so on, so forth, etcetera, and etcetera.

So I but it to all of you dear friends and readers, is this new explosion of gaming on social platforms a sign of great change that will push the industry into a new era of creativity or is Facebook the rider of the black horse, preparing to spread a famine amongst hardcore games and gamers while it sows the seeds of meaningless fluff?

Comment below.

Yes I know, there’s been a long pause in posting as of late, things have been busy for us and to be perfectly honest, I myself came down with a case of the lazies as I was dealing with some changes and upheavals.

That said, Merry Christmas, Happie Hollidaze, Joyous Solstice , etc etc.

I hope everyone enjoys the 2 weeks between now and 2010. Hopefully 2010 brings more excitement, good times and even better games!

Also, before anyone else yells at me, I’ll see about writing up more content and posting more frequently, or getting some other writers to join in the fun lol. We’ll see how the landscape of 2010 presents itself!

~Anj