Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

An Alternative Future – Part 3

After a moderate hiatus, I’ve returned to complete this article series. In the last two articles in this series, I mostly talked about game content. First saying that you should refuse to pay exhorbitant prices for trivial items, and then proposing that you should assert some ownership over content you create. We can’t let game publishers have their cake and eat it too!

It seems that content is a hot topic right now. Everyday there are new blog posts or web comics discussing how EA, or Microsoft, or Sony, or Nintendo are trying to milk the most out of consumers. For this final article, I’m tackling a different issue. It’s also concerned with console and game manufacturers asserting control over what and how you play, and how much you pay for it. However, it’s something that seems to be sneaking in under the radar.

I haven’t yet seen an article or editorial that discusses the slow move to consumer dependance on centralised, tightly integrated online gaming networks. So I obviously figured I’ll write that article. Here it is!

When debating the online efforts for the major players, people often talk about the benefit of having a consistent online system for all games, or the need to register friend codes before being able to communicate with people online. However, there is a more fundamental question we should be asking. That is:

“Is it a good idea for gamers to be dependant on servers run by console manufacturers or game publishers?”

It seems to me that we are fairly happy to put a lot of trust in companies who run these networks. Is that really wise? Isn’t this yet another way that companies can milk more money from consumers; using techniques that previously weren’t available to them. Consider this example. What if a games company decides to shutdown the “Football Game 2007″ servers to force people to upgrade to “Football Game 2008″?

Increasingly, our data is kept on remote servers. Your gamer tag, your stats, your achievements are all controlled by someone else who can change terms at any time (maybe start charging for maintanence?). If reputation is the only real currency in the online gaming world, your gamer card (or profile or whatever it’s called) is worth everything. It would be a PR fiasco for companies to hold your data to ransom, but isn’t it imprudent to give them complete control?

The cost of complacency is potentially very high. Imagine the worst case scenarios I talked about in The Changing Face of Gaming article series. It seems that when you buy a game, you get even less than before. As games become increasingly multiplayer and more dependent on remote servers, you won’t even be able put a game in and play whenever you want. It will need to register, connect to a server, ensure that you’ve bought all the plugins and addons required to play the levelset that they are hosting…

So what’s a solution? What should we do? Well, I’m calling for a return to the “host a server” option common in PC games. Why do I have to connect to one of their servers to play online against friends? Why can’t I host a game and have others connect? Why can’t I manage my own mods and rules? But most importantly, we should be able to run our own servers even after their servers go down. I want to be able to pull my version of Phantasy Star Online out of the attic in 15 years time and enjoy a few games with my fellow retro-gamers… that’s not going to happen if we always play on their servers!

Original image from Ian Britton. Modifed by me.