The Abandonwagon

Every night when I sleep in the comfort of my warm, soft, and on nights when I feel particularly lonely, a little bit damp, pullout bed, I stare at the ceiling wondering about how long I can possibly keep putting things into to the massive cupboard on my left before it decides to publicly remind me of what it had in it, mostly old worksheets collected over the years that I've simply been too lazy to throw out. The worrying is often compounded by the fact that the cupboard is located on my right and a few metres up, which isn't so much of a problem if it stays a few metres up, but further assessments of the structural integrity of wood have forced me to dart quickly to the side everytime I open the cupboard.

The strange thing is that even though these old worksheets pose a potential threat to my ability to impress the citizens of Flatland, I simply don't have the motivation to clear them out, which isn't much of a problem anyway since I'm able to quite easily and conveniently rationalize that they are there for the purposes of book-keeping, and that the administration of the school might one day call upon me to resubmit work for exhibition and demonstration purposes, thus allowing me to contribute to the fullest to any Green Week events and so on. But the truth is, I've never had any reason to touch any of the old worksheets that still sit grumpily in the top of the cupboard while investing in the acquisition of exotic fungi. It's been years since I've even looked through any of the documents that I put up there. But the thing is, all these worksheets are the (unwanted) results of late night toiling and contributions to the coffee business, and it just seems terribly wasteful to allocate them into the black void of the rubbish chute. I just want to keep them for absolutely no reason.

Now let's just assume for the sake of linking this to the topic I'm about to discuss that someone wants my old worksheets for reference purposes. Ignoring the obvious integrity violations that come with that, let's just say that I refuse to give it to them on the grounds that they are my worksheets and I have the right to not give it to them. They might argue that I'm simply not using them anymore, so why not let them have it?

And let's just assume, for the sake of the argument that I haven't even told you about here, that someone else had already photocopied my worksheets in the past, and for the reason that I wouldn't give anyone else my worksheets, started making copies of that worksheet and distributing it to those who wanted it. I might get very angry, and possibly make that person stand in front of my cupboard of worksheets while I open it. Here's the question: Is that really fair?

Alright, alright. All that was a rather flimsy and clumsy buildup to the topic of Abandonware, but I just wanted to be able to mention my worksheets. But on to the actual topic of Abandonware.

Abandonware is basically the business (not really, actually) of taking old games or software that aren't being sold anymore and distributing them for free o'er the mossy swamp that is the Internet, and this is usually done by everyone except the companies responsible for the creation of the released software/games. The rationale behind the whole process of distributing old software (which is not actually legal, despite common belief) that isn't being sold anymore is that since the company or companies that created these pieces of old software aren't selling them anymore, and aren't making any sort of profit from them, then surely it stands to reason to simply allow the general public to use the aforementioned software for free, since it simply isn't of any use to these companies anymore.

The creators of the software have responded to this by saying they didn't say that anyone could do that yet, and that while the old software may be old it's still theirs, and that if anyone were to distribute it for free it would be them. Very few software developers actually release old games for free anyway, and so the general public have taken matters into their own hands and simply started distributing old software by themselves anyway, which the creators have labelled as piracy since they didn't have permission to do so. The whole debate then degenerates in the same way that most alcohol based marriages do, with both parties going off into their respective haunts and doing what they were doing, while muttering about how the other party can't see reason. Meanwhile the children are left sobbing in their rooms, or blasting heavy metal.

And the whole thing really is understandable (dropping the analogy). While I take the relatively pubescent stance that Abandonware distributed by third parties without the permission of its creators is still illegal regardless of how much your teeth shine and your love for the American Dream, because the decision of whether to release the old software in question still lies with the software's creators. The problem here is that more often than not, the begging of the public for such software is often met with results of the Oliver Twist variety, and since the software isn't being produced anymore and isn't available on store shelves (or even bins, for that matter), those who want it don't even have the option of purchasing the software. In this case, there is simply no way of obtaining the old software, even if you are willing to pay for it.

And at this point the owners of old software have two options: They can either release the old software for free download and be bathed in rose petals and confetti and never have to worry about fall injuries because of the good amount of people constantly following them around ready to perform a trust fall catch, or they can do what Valve has done for years now, which is distribute their old software online.

Not for free, of course, seeing as how that's the alternative and the point of an alternative is to not be the same as the non- alternative (which is actually an alternative to the alternative anyway, but heigh-ho). But online distribution gets rid of the unfeasibility of having to reproduce old software for distribution via stores, and so provides people with the option of obtaining that old software legally and for a small profit, assuming that the owners of old software charge much less than they originally did, which seems reasonable considering the software's abundance of medical problems by this point.

And Valve have done this amazingly well with Steam (No, I don't get any sort of commission for this. The correct ethical question should in fact be: Why not?). All their games, from the very first Half Life, are available for online purchase and download via Steam, and they also seem to have grasped the concept of making old software very affordable, as seen by their move of making the original Half Life (released in 1998) cost under five US dollars, which makes sense. Valve still gets profit from their old software and the consumers (It seems I've turned American by the end of this article) have the option of purchasing the old software for an affordable price.

And this does several things to the argument that old software should be released for free. Once old software is made available for purchase via online distribution, the argument that old software no longer earn their developers any profit is given good slap on the head, as is the argument that they are no longer available for purchase. From that point, it's up to the owners of the software whether they want to release it for free, but at least the dream of being able to obtain the software is made thoroughly obsolete, and can be replaced by dreams more appealing and affordable.

The only problem that would arise from this solution is what arises from all good ideas (I've yet to patent it as a result of my unbearable humility). That is, once someone does it, just about everyone does it. While that might not be a problem for all ideas, the problem here is that Valve distributes their software by way of Steam, an online client, that must be installed on the user's computer and you have to make an account for it before you start digging around and the whole process is actually quite an ordeal from my previous experiences. The thing is that if every software company were to start doing this, how many clients would you have to install on your computer before you run out of space for the actual software?

So what solutions might there be to this? A single, new, universal client that can access each company's "marketplace", or services like Direct2Drive that pride themselves on online distribution for all sorts of media? What will the online marketplace look like once many companies, not just software or game developers, jump onto the bandwagon? Will their jumping on shift the cart forward by way of momentum or will they break it? Who knows? Meanwhile, all we can do is sit and reminisce about the old software and games that we miss so dearly.

Of Jetpacks and Skis

Being the sort of person that the mass media point to every once in a while while on the topic of violent games and go "He's what we're talking about!", a few days ago I was looking for something to soothe, or rather cater to, the savage beast within me, and so started hunting for first person shooter demos that would dispense the necessary amount of adrenaline to satisfy the fix that I so badly needed. And after a bit of hunting I rediscovered the Tribes Vengeance demos.

Also being the sort of person that people point to and say "He's what we're talking about!" while on the topic of nerds, I promptly started reading about the Tribes series as a whole after playing through and thoroughly finishing the two single player demos. And it was then that I discovered that according to the collective wisdom of Wikipedia that fans of the original Tribes games considered themselves to be playing the only true 3D first person shooter.

Also being the sort of person that can be entertained for a good amount of time by a Word Processor, this got me thinking about subject that I just spent an entire paragraph talking about earlier. But just so I don't alienate everyone else that isn't essentially a scholar when it comes to the Tribes series, I should probably just give a quick introduction to it (That was probably a bit of a stretch, really. I'm really not well versed in the Tribes mythos so I should probably stop talking like I am one.)

While there's a colossal amount of galactic history behind the Tribes series, all you have to know is this. There are jetpacks. These jetpacks are attached to people and this makes the aforementioned people fly. The aforementioned people, also aforementioned twice before, now having the aforementioned jetpacks attached to their aforementioned backs, decide that, quite logically, the thing to do would be to shoot other people with similar jetpacks while flying around (both of the groups of aforementioned people are doing so) while stealing the flags of the other group of aforemntioned people. But grammatical purity aside, the point of the Tribes series is team based objective driven games that also introduce one very important element: mobility.

Everyone in the game has a jetpack and, from Tribes 2 onwards, a set of skis that can be magically summoned to their feet by the touch of a button, though the characters in game don't seem to have to do anything at all, so we can only assume that the skis are in fact clairvoyant, and both are used to traverse massive, sprawling environments that usually consist of many very conveniently smooth hills and mountains. Jetpacks allow the player to gain altitude, while the skis allow players to take advantage of their gravitational potential energy by skiing down hills once they have ascended to the necessary altitude.

This, as you really shouldn't be imagining instead of actually doing so, is immensely fun. About half the fun (correct to about as many decimal points as is really needed) comes from traversing terrain, while the other half can be attributed to everything else. In other words, without jetpacks and skis, an incredibly bizarre combination that has never really been brought together in anything else other than in conversations that end in "that would be awesome" before this series, Tribes simply wouldn't be Tribes. It might still be called Tribes, but there would be a lot less jetpacks and skis, which really isn't the point of the game that would have existed. Never mind, forget that. The point is, the jetpacks and skis contribute a lot to the fun.

And seeing as how hardly any other games have really truly adknowledged the y-axis in game environments at all, one (I'm assuming that this is the current population of people reading this, sadly inclusive of me) has to conceded, at least to a certain degree, that the bold proclaimation made by Tribes fans is somewhat justified. While just about every game that comes out these days (Specifically which isn't really important, since the phrase "these days" seems to be completely acceptable even though the actual amount of days that is meant isn't specified at all. People just seem to understand what you mean and nod their heads in agreement.) don't really focus on vertical movement as much as Tribes did, despite the fact that a good amount of y-axis' are available for use. The 3D aspect of most games seems to be limited to where you aim, but the sensation of being able to move up and down has pretty much just been limited to jumping, usually to a meagre height that would warrant exasperation from the protagonist of Narbacular Drop. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narbacular_Drop) The technology of 3D environments seems to have taken a somewhat passive role in actual gameplay.

Which raises the topic of technology and gameplay. Why aren't technological advances, such as the physics engines of today's games, being more heavily implemented into gameplay? While the common expectation that something must move the moment it is hit in a game exists, this doesn't seem to have much of an effect in gameplay, other than the fact that it simply feels unusual and morally incorrect if a cardboard box refuses to yield a shower of bullets that would otherwise invoke a good and healthy amount of screaming from any enemy. It seems to be a practice that is done in game development simply to establish the fact that the game in question is clearly a next-gen game. But what if this technology was implemented into gameplay as a core element?

Portal, for instance, that probably doesn't need anymore polish from me on its critically acclaimed nails than it already has, took advantage of 3D environments and physics as a core part of its gameplay. Momentum, velocity, perspective were all elements of a brilliant game that could only have been done on an 3D engine with proper physics. Call of Duty 4 is another, with a proprietary physics engine with bullet penetration physics and a lot of other things that sound very impressive built into the game, that had an actual impact in gameplay. Cover was no longer something that you could simply loungue behind for very long because of its tendency to disappear after a while.

Physics engines are taking on a the role of an Edwardian chimney sweeper, poor and unnoticed and simply begging for more. We've all spoken of the fabled cone headshot incident in Halo 3 in hushed voices, something that wouldn't have been possible without today's physics engines, and while Bungie, in its intellectual torpor, hasn't had the good sense to take advantage of that IP, why not someone else? A game that implemented launching grabbing and tossing things at people would be very welcome at this point, and the fun derived from using the Gravity Gun from Half Life 2 is a testament to that. Physics engines are there to be made of use of, and we can't possibly pass by our duty to do so, can we?