Episode 11: Who Let the Games Out?

Since the last of few of my blogs have been in the rhelms of something I should yell from a soap box here is another of those, though this is about the gaming industry. What broken street dates will mean for the future of the gaming industry. 

The Australian gaming industry is at serious risk of collapsing, not because of an issue that they have caused themselves, but rather one that the consumer has made, and to most gamers, it isn’t an evident issue. It’s the problem of broken ‘street dates’. In business, a street date is the date a particular product is to be released for sale to the general public and retailers are breaking this date. 

Waiting for a game to be released is the most difficult thing in the life of a gamer. For months leading up to the release, we’re fed trailers and screen shots, getting us ready for the all-important street date. So when a game does break street date, you can guarantee that the last thing a gamer is going to be thinking about are the long-term effects this will have on the industry.  

The process of releasing a game is long and arduous. It all starts early into the development of a game and a release date is set. After the game is finished, a copy is sent to the distributers, who are required to make copies, organize shipping, and generally create more hype surrounding the game. The last stage is when the stores receive their copies of the game, usually two to four days before the release date. The stores are then trusted to sell on the release date. Recently the retailers have made trouble for themselves by deciding to sell before this date; this is what is causing a lot of controversy.  

‘If you think back to the Harry Potter releases, the hype around some of these books it was very rare that you heard of a store that was brave enough to do that.’ says Ingrid Just. This courtesy is not seen in the gaming industry, if the retailers can increase their profit margin, they will. Street dates are there to even out the field for the smaller retailers and they are an important part of the distribution machine that surrounds a massive release.  

It is a massive loss to the retailers that break the street date and to the gamers that buy the games before the release. Yann Suquet says ‘that [gamers’] don’t get that excitement of the first day and some events that we might have had... It would have been more fun if they waited coz they get more out of the launch of the game.’  

A market the size of this country, anywhere between 3-5% of the global market, is insignificant in comparison to some of the big European or US markets and if this becomes the norm and games like Skyrim, Battlefield 3 and Arkham City continually break street dates, then we are risking a delay put on Australian releases across the board. That’s something we don’t want and something consumers and retailers don’t want but that is the path that we’re going down.  

Last year, there was a lot of confusion surrounding Batman: Arkham City because they broke street date. The confusion stemmed from an issue with the Cat Woman DLC. People were complaining that their codes were not working, yet it hadn’t been activated globally yet as the game had not officially been released.

Despite the strict rules and guidelines that are given to retailers when they first receive the shipment from the distributors, anything from an indiscreet staff member to a really persistent customer can cause a game to leak. Once this happens all the other stores are forced to do so also or face huge losses. Expensive events like midnight openings and press events are now ruined. 

Retailers will do anything they can to be the first people selling a particular product. This competition is at a whole new level in the gaming industry. Russell Zimmerman, the executive director at the Australian Retailers Association, says if ‘there is anything wrong with the products going to be allowed to be sold say on a particular date, and that means 1 minute past midnight you start selling it. There is nothing wrong with that retailer opening their doors and selling it but for a retailer to go out a day or two days before the marketing date then yes, it’s ethically unreasonable…[it]  does make it difficult for the other retailers.’

 If it breaks street date and somebody hacks it and then there’s hundreds of torrents then nobody buys it. The producers have then made a terrible business decision, by making a great game and that’s depressing. ‘I want to care about making great games and then I want people to spend money on great games so that we have money to make the next great game. That’s what this cycle should be.’ – Seth Olshfki. 

The newest addition to the Star Wars gaming franchise, Star Wars: The Old Republic, broke street date but with a difference. When a global staggered release was set by EA (Electronic Arts, a game products company) for technical reasons, many Australian fans began grey importing, getting copies from overseas. This led some retailers to spurn local distributers, importing copies themselves and selling onto the public. If this trend continues distributers may try and prevent future breaks by online only sales. That in itself will bring more issues.  

This could all potentially come back to affect the Australian consumers. Stores may no longer accept pre-orders, they may stock lower quantities or not receive copies of the game right up until the very day of release. Australia is a big country and there are logistics in moving a shipment and products around. So that could mean that customers may not have it on the actual release day if you live in Alice Springs and it doesn’t get there in time.  

This issue needs to be addressed and though it is also the responsibility of the retailers to follow the guidelines of game release, it is also the responsibility of the gamers to maintain the integrity of the gaming industry. Don’t be the ‘feeder’ that everyone hates.  

Episode 10: Talkin' 'bout my Generation

For today's episode of the Comrade Contrary files I want to not so much discuss an issue but rather talk about observations I have made about the world around me. More and more I am struck by the way society evolves. I myself grew up in the '90s and I was lucked with really young parents, they were both 21 when they had me, though some people might argue that this is not a good thing I find and have found it really helpful. When I had teenage issues my parents still had advice that was reasonable up to date, they weren't so far out of their teens that their advice was inapplicable in the society that I was living in. However there are more practical things that I have found there is a large disconnect or gap between what I have been taught and what my parents were taught.

The other day I went to my dad and I asked him if we had the things for me to shine my shoes, he told me yes and pointed me in the direction of the utensils to shine said shoes. When I opened the wooden box with the things in I was confused and taken a-back, inside was several bushes and a tin of black shoe polish. Now some of you older reader of my blog will be able to pick up these things and be able to shine your black shoes. I was not, I was used to a tube with a foam end and you squeeze it on your shoes and they were magically shine. So I took the things to my dad and he just laughed and sat me down and took me though the process of shining my shoes. It was simple enough but I was amazed at how old-fashioned (I say this with lack of a better term) my dad was.

Quite often I am generally shocked at how practical my dad and my grandfather (this may be because he is a farmer but he is the only grandfather I have) are. My poppa has taught me to do so many things that I am amazed that I managed to get through my life to that point without knowing how to do these things. Despite the fact that my poppa can't use a computer and struggles with the microwave on occasion he is amazingly talented at things to do with his hands and practical tasks. He taught me some of the basics of these practical tasks such as basic mechanics, to simple plumbing and electrical problem solving. After learning and knowing things like that I am ashamed to say that I look at people who can't do them and I find them useless, yes there is a thing to be said for the argument that in a modern day society that we have means of fixing the issues without know these what may seem old-fashioned means. I would argue that there is value in having a deeper understanding of the things around you.

Episode 9: From Danniella Westbrook to Northern Slums

For today's instalment of the Comrade Contrary files I am going to take a dip into the world of British media. The British working-class is a commonly referred to as ‘Chavs’, characterized by their rowdy, violent behaviour, track-suit, sneakers and Burberry cap, they are the vilified class. 'The stereotype made famous by Vicky Pollard in the BBC comedy series Little Britain', has been the victim of media attacks for many years.  There are many different interpretations of the term, for instance the Oxford University Press, tells me that a 'chav' is, “a young person, often without a high level of education, who follows a particular fashion”. Meanwhile, the brutally forthright Urban Dictionary argues that a 'chav' is simply a person that is, “completely amoral, having never been subjected to right and wrong by their inattentive, uncaring and often absent parents.” This is an excellent example of the attitude that the middle-class media and the current Prime Minister David Cameron.

There are many excellent examples of the British media vilifying the working-class from the case of Shannon Matthews, to the news coverage of many football games, to the riots in the 1980s and the more recent 2011 riots.

The case of Shannon Matthews is one of the easiest places to start. Shannon Matthews was kidnapped on her way home from a swimming class in February of 2008. Shannon was from a working-class family, her mother had 7 children from 5 different fathers and she lived in the working-class suburb of Yorkshire. This much like any other kidnapping of a young girl was devastating and tragic, though not compared to the way it was depicted, or rather not depicted in the media.
9 months earlier on a family holiday in the Portuguese Algrave, Madeline McCann was kidnapped from her bedroom. There were 1,148 stories in the media and a sum of £2.6 Million in reward money from Sir Richard Branson, the Sun and J.K. Rowling. Madeline McCann became a household name, there were websites everywhere, 'help find Madeline'. Comparatively in the same time period that this was going on Shannon Matthews received one third of the media coverage in the same span of time and the reward for her was only £50, 000 almost all donated by the Sun.

The media portrayed the McCanns as a victim, that ‘kind of thing doesn’t usually happen to people like us’, implying the middle-class people. Which was a startlingly different from Matthews, she was demonized because she wasn’t ‘like us’. The media, dominated by the middle-class was only able to empathize with people of the middle-class. Much-like how the media ignored the ‘north’ and its ‘negligent wasteland’ of slums, they ignored Shannon Matthews. This in turn resulted in the people of Britain focusing on Madeline McCann, she was a household name, whereas Matthews was just another ‘Chav’ who was a victim of ‘a chaotic domestic situation, inflicted by parents on their innocent children, long before she vanished’, because Matthews’ family was not the ‘idealized portrait of middle-class family life’ like the McCanns. Matthews’ family conformed to the ‘Chav’ stereotype and hence, she was pushed to the side. I know that this is old news but it is a good example of a re-occurring theme in the British media that needs to be addressed.

The 2011 London Riots were the result a complex web of political, sociological and psychological causal factors, and a response to the growing disconnect between the political and media classes and the broader mass of British Citizens. The shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police showed the harassment with which the British Black community has been faced. Yet it’s amazing that the British police manage to shoot so many people when they are an UNARMED force. The politics of classes shows how the social elite oversimplify the issues that the working-class people are faced with due to the growing divide between them and the elite.

The riots started after the police shooting of Mark Duggan, and began as a peaceful protest but soon escalated to an intensity not seen in Britain since the Brixton riots against Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government in 1981.  The Metropolitan police would suggest that Duggan is a ‘gangster and a drug dealer’ characteristic commonly associated with ‘Chavs’, yet the people that lived with him in his community claimed ‘he never troubled nobody’. The treatment of Duggan was based on this falsehood; the people could see this was not appropriate and revolted. Tottenham has historically been a black community that has had issues with the Police and the government’s social policies such as the stop and search laws. The race riots in ’81 highlighted the constant struggle that the Black community faces in being a minority. The Black community does not trust the police because they view them as racists. As activist and local resident Darius Howe argued ‘you have to feel some weight on your neck, you have to feel somebody strangling you, for you to respond violently and that is precisely what happened in the riots here’. Howe believes it is ‘police behaviour towards black people that’s the root cause of the violence. In particular, the hated stop and search laws that many argue are amount to police harassment’. The shooting of Duggan was the trigger for the community to act on being abused by the institutions for so long.

This is just a small taste of what is a huge issue in Britain at the present time. If you want to get a little bit more of an idea I would suggest Owen Jones' book Chavs; The demonization of the working-class, No such thing as society by Andy Smith and the following links:

http://www.culturecompass.co.uk/2009/03/16/chavs-on-tv/
http://spiltinc.co.uk/2012/05/13/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-call-someone-a-chav/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/owen-jones-why-chavs-were-the-riots-scapegoats-7697824.html

Episode 8: Would You Eat Your Cat?

For the 8th rendition of the comrade contrary files i am going to look at ethical conundrums. This is a HUGE topic so I will stretch it out over a few posts. For this post I will specifically look at ethical impasses.

Would you eat your cat?
Is it always ok to look at your own photos?
Is it better to be a sexist or a misanthrope?
Are we morally obliged to end the world?
Are we really sorry Hitler existed?
Should we sacrifice one to save five?

Humanity likes to think that all moral questions are black and white. That there is the obvious right and the obvious wrong to choose between. Many people would be discouraged to find out that this is not the case and not all of those people would be fundamentalist Christians or people of the like. These people would be even more discouraged when they are faced with moral questions that have no answer at all.

People like to be right and to have the 'moral high ground', people will disagree about whether euthanasia is morally acceptable and there is a reasonably clean cut argument for both sides. There are however ethical conundrums where it is foggy about where we even begin to commence thinking about these issues and the more we examine their various moral complexities the more confused we become.

Welcome to the world of eating pets, runaway trains and demagogues who want to end the world.

Would you eat your cat?
"Betty Slocombe's cat was killed in a tragic accident with an out of control lawnmower. She had heard that cat meat was jolly tasty, so she cut up her cat, cooked it, and ate it for dinner. To date, she has never regretted her culinary experiment and she claims not to have suffered any harm as a result of cooking and eating Fopsy."

http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/

Is it better to be a sexist or a misanthrope?
"Harold Carpenter and Lou Bishop are neighbours in sun-kissed Erinsford, a town nestled on the Humberside Rivera. Harold, unfortunately, does not share the sunny disposition of his home town. He's a misanthrope. He dislikes people - a lot. He doesn't have friends, and he views his acquaintances with barely concealed contempt. Harold is very much an equal opportunity misanthrope - he dislikes men, women, straights, gays, blacks, whites and one-legged people with an equal intensity. To his credit, he is aware that his misanthropy is a problem, so he keeps to himself as much as possible. Nevertheless, he is certainly a negative force in the world, subtracting from rather than adding to the sum total of human happiness.

Lou Bishop is a different Kettle of fish altogether. He likes most people a lot. He considers even his neighbours to be good friends, and treats nearly everybody he meets with consideration and kindness. However, he is an unreconstructed male chauvinist. He believe that men are intellectually superior to women, and thinks that the 'fairer sex' are really only suited to be homemakers. He cannot cope with 'modern women' at all: as far as he is concerned, women should be kept as far away as possible from manly pursuits such as money making and playing golf. Lou is aware that society frowns upon his sexism, so he tries to avoid modern women as much as he can. Nevertheless, in his dealings with them, he is definitely a negative force in the world, subtracting from rather than adding to the sum of human happiness.

FURTHER FACTS ABOUT HAROLD AND LOU:
1. Harold treats 'modern' women worse than Lou treats them. Not because he's a sexist - he isn't - just because he doesn't like other people.
2. Lou treats everybody better than Harold treats anybody.
3. Harold does not discriminate whereas Lou does. Harold would employ a woman to do a job if she was the best candidate. Lou would not."

Would you eat your cat?, Jeremy Stangroom

There are 2 conundrums for you to mull over at your leisure. As this was a very heavy handed post I leave you with a more light-hearted question.

"You are in Berlin, 1933. Somehow, you find yourself in a position where you can effortlessly steal Hitler's wallet. This theft will not affect Hitler's rise to power, the nature of WW2, or the Holocaust. There is no important identification in the wallet, but the act will cost Hitler forty Reichsmarks and completely ruin his evening. You do not need the money. The odds that you will be caught committing this act are less than 2 percent. Are you ethically obligated to steal Hitler's wallet?"

From here: http://i.imgur.com/KM74P.jpg