Revisit: Russell, Come Home!

Been thinking about Game Challenge #1: Russell, Come Home!

Here are some proposed changes to the game. 

Reduce number of players from 3 to 2.  Russell and Parents play on the same team now, collectively referred to as the Family Team.

Score is based on a countdown.  Start at 10 points, counts down every time a tree is planted.  That score is given to the Family Team once Russell makes it home. 

Game is played in two rounds, with Player 1 as the Family Team and Player 2 as the Environment.  After the first round, Player 1 and 2 switch teams.

Humble Bundle Piracy

The Humble Bundle was a way of donating money to charities and getting 5 great indie games.

The downside is that even with the ability to pay as little as a cent, the games are still be pirated.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/05/humble-bundle-gives-pirates-what-they-want-gets-ripped-off.ars

But two quotes of note from the article:

Rosen lays out these reasons, saying that Wolfire doesn't plan on doing anything to thwart those who pirate the games. "When considering any kind of DRM, we have to ask ourselves, 'How many legitimate users is it OK to inconvenience in order to reduce piracy?' The answer should be none."

Jeffery Rosen understands that games are a service, a luxury.  Inconveniencing paying customers should not be the solution.

"A lot of these people don't just pirate the game, they take pleasure in spreading the pirated links to their friends or anonymous buddies for fun," Rosen told Ars. "They just don't care, and if you can't get someone to pay a penny in this case—will they really pay full price for a game?"


And here we have a the key point.  Piracy isn't about the game, it's about the meta-game of distribution.  When looking at Game Theory, a key thing to consider is Utility, the motivation of the player.  In this case, the player is the consumer, and the motivation is to distribute the game, as opposed to acquiring the game.

It's like looking at griefers in games, whose motivation is not playing the game, it's in aggravating the opposing players.

If classic games were made today.

From Zack Hiwiller via Kotaku:

If SMB was made today.

Makes me think of Achievement Unlocked, which pokes fun at Achievements.