Double Agent
Open fire - June 23, 2001 - Nich Maragos

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. I'd like to return these sneakers, sir. Don't say we didn't warn you.

I'm of two minds on the PSO v2 thing, and you lucky readers will get to see them both below. So let's dive right in.

First salvo
Yo! Monkey man,

How about the companies listen to us when we tell them that maybe instead of Quest 64 they should be making Earthbound 2. Or how about when you do a poll on gamers favorite tunes, you don't ignore said poll. And how about when there's a level that takes place in Hell, listen to us when we beg you not to turn it into an island that falls out of touch with the rest of the game and makes certain scenes make even less sense than they already did. I'd like to say "Hey, the producers are the professionals, what do we know?" But when they want to make a Final Fantasy game starring Tom Cruise when we're all begging for FF Tactics 2, that's about the time I start wondering who knows better. Gamers know what gamers want, companies usually have an idea of what we want, and sometimes it matches ours perfectly, like the new GBA Castlevania, sometimes it belittles what we want, like when they start turning FF into an Army Men series, and every rare once in awhile they completely surpass what we expected, like Seaman (First play through anyways) and Jumping Flash. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, I think that they should grant a sequel with new features and stuff if we ask for one (1), but by the time we say "GIVE US FFT 3!" then unless they can innovate again, they might want to consider telling us to shut up. I'd imagine we don't have Evil Dead 4 because Sam Raimi doesn't have enough ideas to justify it yet. But we probably have "Dusk til Dawn" 2 and 3 straight to video despite fan objection.

-Gilbert

Let me get this straight--companies should listen to us until they come up with good reasons not to? I think what you're failing to take into account is that they may have good reasons in the first place.

This letter illustrates one of my biggest peeves about the whole issue, which I'll go into more a little below: what Gilbert is saying here is that he doesn't like the direction that Final Fantasy series is taking, and therefore Square should heed his expert advice to stop making it like the Army Men series, or whatever he's going on about. It's the idea that the gaming community as a whole knows what's best, and they're not going to shut up until you give them what they want.

And I'm not done yet, not by a long shot ...

Playing offense
I think that consumers should be first.  Comapnies would not be here if we weren't buying their games.  I don't own a dreamcast or the first version of Phantasy Star.  I thin it is a way for sega to make cash.  This is probably the same reason I won't own Final Fantasy 11.  Maybe I was spoiled by Diablo with free online gaming but Should I have to pay for my ISP AND to play the game?????  Sounds cheesy to me

-Mch

George Carlin once dismantled this same argument more effectively and eloquently than I could, although he was talking about sports fans instead of videogame fans. Responding to smug idiots who said "sports are really all about the fans," he pointed out that sports were really about the dozen or so guys out there playing the game. Fans came second, and were (and still are) entirely peripheral to the existence of the game.

If you took the fans away from sports, the game would still be there. No stadiums, no national televised matches, no eight- and nine-figure contracts, but the sport would survive. What would die is the sporting industry. Similarly, games don't need fancy graphics and hundred-plus development teams to exist, or even to be good. Fans of RPGs' strong plot and characters could get by with text adventures in a pinch. Twitch action junkies don't strictly need anything more complicated than the original Gradius. You get the idea.

But the attitude that Mch and Gilbert, as well as those who sent nasty letters to Sega, are really expressing here is something much more insidious and bad. It's the idea that game companies owe them. That, by purchasing a game here and there from a company, that company is now obligated to cater to their whims. Sega owes its fans a $20 PSO v2 with no monthly fees, dammit. Atlus owes us all a localization of Persona 2: Innocent Sin. (I have seen forum posters here and there who resolve never to buy an Atlus product again unless this particular bit of wish-fulfillment comes true.)

They owe us nothing. We have no right to videogames. A "right" is something given to every citizen in the country, and the ability to play games just doesn't fall under that category. Companies release the games, we pay money for them (this "I have the right" line of thinking is coincidentally one of the main rationalizations for piracy), and the transaction ends there. Anyone who expects more than that from them can come round my place for a more graphic version of this lecture, with extensive use of props.

Very civilized rebellion
Hey Nich,

At first, Sega receives a bunch of e-mails about "I'm not buying PSO ver. 2!" or a few well-written ones where the gamer explains why he won't be buying PSO ver. 2. Now they are probably receiving a bunch of e-mails from gamers who are are begging them to release it at all cost.

Then again, maybe gamers ARE a bunch of whiners, but that's no reason for us to stop doing so, we just need to do it appropiately, and actually get off our asses when we have something to say rather than simply say "Oh as if they will listen!". If people just complain for the sake of complaining, or actually go as far as e-mail a company to let them know their not happy with their decisions while thinking their e-mails won't change anything, they will be end up with undisered results, as it may be the case with PSO (or FF's increased commercialism).

-Phil

Well, calming down a little, I sort of disagree. I don't think there is a "correct" or "intelligent" way to whine at companies. I realize that many games are released with some glaring flaws, but what people must remember is that every letter a company gets, praise or flame, is just someone's opinion. I don't go around stuffing Capcom's feedback box with cries to end Resident Evil's control scheme, though I certainly bitch about it enough elsewhere. The reason is that in the end, I am aware that what I think doesn't especially matter. Lots of people enjoy and can deal easily with RE's controls--who am I to believe my opinion is the "correct" one? Wait, don't answer that.

Role model
I think a company that gets it right in the regards of listening and putting out their own stuff that's different would be Square.  I mean, how many emails did we all send to see a US FFCollection?  And after that, to see FFIV and the CT remake?  See, they waited until a bunch of these came in so they could release these and not have to worry about sales.  Or in my opinion, they're throwing FFChronicles at us to make up for the tens of millions over budget sure to be crapfest FF movie.  And, make it look like they care about us at the same time.  Nifty, eh?

Similarly, they throw out different things on their own as well.  I mean, 4 years ago, we'd have never seen Chocobo's Dungeon 2, Driving Emotion Type-S, or even the Parasite Eve series.  Granted, none of these were that great, but SquareEA gave them the balls to put this stuff out that they wouldn't have previously dreamed of releasing.  Or something.

-Scott

P.S.  man, sneding in those requests for FFV sure seems like a waste now, eh?

Okay, but I don't believe for a second Square released those PSX ports here because people asked for them. A more likely scenario is that they saw the success of the Lunar rereleases, did the math, and released the two simplest games they could. (FFV had already been translated for a planned PC release, remember, and FFIV's would have had to be retrofitted for the Hard Type, which was apparently too much effort at the time.) And in a year when the Bouncer and Final Fantasy X are all Square has for us at all, we get Final Fantasy Chronicles to bulk up the release slate, however slightly.

If you think about it, if Square was really doing what we wanted, we'd have our American WonderSwan Colors in grubby little hands, playing the Final Fantasy remakes in English. So long as we're dreaming, you know.

The subject at hand
Good riddance, I say to PSO v2.0. Now, don't get me wrong. While not comparable to the major PC online RPGs, PSO is an excellent game, and truly groundbreaking. But PSO v2.0, frankly, looks like crap. The entire thing stinks of Nintendo's Pokemon strategy: throw together a few bells and whistles, tack on some minigames, and sell the entire thing as if it were a new game. However, it's doubly galling in this case in that it's merely an EXPANSION, forcing people to shell out an equal amount of money for the (worthwhile) original. Now, frankly, I don't think there was even enough in the expansion to warrant the price they charged for it, but adding a fee, regardless of whether we were lucky to avoid it originally or not, just throws the whole cost-to-fun ratio out the window. Frankly, the most interesting thing in v2.0 sounds like the broadband support, but it still requires an expensive and difficult-to-find adapter, only adding to the massive epxenses being heaped on devotees. Now, I know plenty of people who are quite willing to buy the expansion and anything else related to PSO, but the greater half of those strike me as addicts who are going to come off the high in a few months and wonder where their $200 went.

Now, I realize that I'm not popular in being a PSO fan that wouldn't want anything to do with v2.0 even without the fee, but...I felt the need to respond to the smug article and Chris' introduction by saying "yes, this IS a good thing". I mean, boo hoo, some fad-hoppers won't be able to get a mag that looks like a Genesis or play soccer with FOnewearls. If that's what it takes to tell companies that they can't pawn off ridiculously overpriced junk tied to a successful game, I'm all for it.

-AJ

Remember when I said I was of two minds about all this? Here's the second part.

When you put away the general "I deserve" issues and focus on the specific matter of Phantasy Star Online ver. 2, I can't muster up much feeling about it one way or the other. Most of the negative things people have been saying about it seem pretty justified to me, and in fact I do believe the price could stand to be a bit lower.

That said, I would have bought it for $50, and I'll tell you why. I never got to play the original due to my peculiar Internet situation. As a college student in a relatively high-tech university, I get free access to not just one, but two ethernet ports in my single-occupancy room. It's a great setup most of the time, but it left me without a dialup account, and I didn't want to get one just for one game. So I bought Sega's broadband adapter ... and it didn't work. I tried more than one of the hacks to get it functional before I bought the game; no dice. As a result, I was really looking forward to version 2, since it supposedly worked with the BBA.

My only real take on the version 2 thing is I'm a little irritated that I might not get to play PSO at all until the true sequel comes out, but I can live with that. Thus, apathy.

Invoice enclosed
Nich,

If Sega has a problem with anything, it's billing people. For some reason, even though their games are hailed by everyone and their mother, Sega can't seem to get rid of the stigma of billing. Remember the Sega channel? So many great games to play, yet, for some reason, it died a gruesome death by having its lines cut everywhere nigh-on simultaneously.

If Sega wants to charge for PSOv2, they should do it the AOL way: "Free hours!!! Join now!!!" That way, people can be sure that it's a good re-tooling and re-creation, rather than a flash in the pan re-hash of the same old game that used to be free.

-Aquila

I do wonder how much of this problem might have been avoided if Sega of America had charged for PSO from the get-go the way that Sega Japan did. Charging full price for the tweak might still seem a little sketchy, but most of the complaints I've read have more to do with the $3/month fee than the retail pricing. Which seems odd to me, since that's about how much I pay to follow just one comic book every month.

Biding your time
Paying full price for PSOv.2 that is pretty much an expansion PLUS the cost of the service to play it online is not something a lot of people will go for. Now, if this were a full on sequel, I believe people would gladly pay.

On topic now...the most original games are ones that developers make for themselves. These people are artists. Their games are art. They shouldn't be listening to us!

-DeLuxSol

I'm only printing this as a reminder that Phantasy Star Online 2 is indeed coming, so those of you angry about only minor tweaks rather than an entirely new game just need to be patient.

But while I'm on the subject, I might as well rant some more. Are any of you familiar with the phrase "voting with your wallet?" It means you don't buy what you're not interested in. There's no need to waste your breath or your stamps complaining to companies when they do something you don't like--just sit back and let inaction takes its course.

Twilight days
It's hard to see what Sega will do about PSO2. I haven't seen anyone support the decision to start charging for PSO2, and there seems to be little reason to support the Dreamcast anymore, even by Sega. I went to my local software retailer on the day Sonic Adventure 2 was to be released, and they had lots and lots of copies in stock, and the cashier said no one was buying it. And this is *Sonic* we're talking about for chrissakes! No one ever says a bad word about Sonic, ever! Imagine how Sega feels about releasing Dreamcast game that's as reviled as PSO2!

I think now that Sega's reconsidering PSO2's release, there's going to be a backlash of fans of the original PSO yelling "I'm sorry! We love you!!!" The people who complain are pretty darned spoiled off all the free stuff off the Internet, but I think they'll change their minds when they realize they might not get it at all. Of course, I could be wrong.

As an outside observer, I can't help but giggle at the fact that the complaints of the fans were actually counter-productive. Tee Hee.

-Andrew Egerton

At last, someone who agrees with me on every count! Er, which makes coming up with a reply sort of difficult.

But since you bring it up, I do sort of wonder how smart a move it would be for Sega to bring PSO v2 out now. No matter how much they talk about the Dreamcast still having plenty of life left in it, the momentum's just not there anymore. As far as I can tell, the last major release on the platform is Shenmue II, which is a long way off. Other than that, Sonic Adventure 2 and Crazy Taxi 2 are already out, with not much except sports games between now and the end of the system. Sniff.

Closing Comments:

I'd be pretty shocked if no one had anything to say to me after reading all that, so tomorrow is a free topic day. Enjoy it while you can, since as some of you undoubtedly noticed, I'm a stickler for staying on topic.

-Nich Maragos, bracing himself

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