Cool Thing Of The Week: Ludomancy

Ludomancy is a Blog by Daniel Benmergui, a talented fellow who writes all sorts of artful games. These games are short, not very hard, and more focused on letting the message shine through than hitting you over the head with it. Some people *cough*Kojima*cough could learn a thing or two about subtlety from this guy. Check it out, play the games, and for God's sake don't read anything about them before you play. Just experiment and have fun.

Little Triggers Part 3

In response to the post in response to my post...

In my post on music piracy I talked about when it's ok to pirate a copy of an album, and I think that my argument can more or less apply to video games as well. As I said before, when a creator of an artwork has already profited a lot from that artwork, then non-physical copies of it should be made available for free.

And I think Square has already profited tremendously from Chrono Trigger. According to Wikipedia, "Chrono Trigger sold more than 2.36 million copies in Japan and 290,000 abroad." So while it hasn't done as well in America, it has still been very successful and Square has profited a lot from it. Because of that, at this point I think it's totally fine to download it illegally.

The argument that Square still gets harmed greatly by this because they just released a port of Chrono Trigger for the DS can also be refuted for several reasons.

1) The product which infringes on copyright is almost an entirely different game. As I said before, people won't play it as a substitute for Chrono Trigger.

2) While this game does essentially force people to pirate a copy of the original Chrono Trigger as well, this will in no way get rid of the market for the port, since it's for a unique handheld system. For this reason, it would make complete sense for a consumer to have as many as three copies of Chrono Trigger at once: the original, which might have been in their possession since it came out; a pirated ROM to play Crimson Echoes; and a DS version to carry around, and to use with special features. In fact, people could even have as many as four copies, since this actually isn't the first time Chrono Trigger has been ported; it was released for the Playstation in a pack with Final Fantasy IV. But I digress. The point is that since the port is for a portable system (no pun intended), especially one as unique as the DS, there will still be a market for it even if people use the illegal ROM to play Crimson Echoes.

3) We're talking about a port. A port of a port, for that matter. The DS version of Chrono Trigger is even less of a new game than the illegal one. I do agree that Square should profit from it, but since less work went into its creation than would have been put into an entirely new game, it's ridiculous to say that Square should profit as much as they did from the original Chrono Trigger. At most, the developers of Crimson Echoes should be forced to wait a little bit to release this game. Although that might even be too much, since the DS port has been around for a little while now.

So the main reason I think that this ROM hack is ok is because in this case, at this point, Square has had many chances to profit from the original work already. But are ROM hacks ok in every case? Well, in theory no. But in reality, I'd say that ROM hacks are OK the vast majority of the time. The reason is that, as I've said before, I think that piracy is OK after the creator has profited significantly from the artwork. And by the time that a game becomes significant enough for fan-made ROM hacks of it to be made, chances are the creators have already profited a ton. So if someone made a ROM hack tribute to World of Goo, for example, then that would be kind of fucked up. But that's way less likely to happen than someone making a ROM hack tribute to an emulated Final Fantasy game. So while in some instances ROM hacks are really harmful, those instances probably won't happen very often, and when they do they should just be taken in a case by case basis.

And I'll also say that because they involve illegal downloading, ROM hacks are definitely not the fairest way to go about making tribute games. But, I still think they should be protected legally in most cases, since it's even less fair to give excess profits a higher priority than a wide variety of art. While a ROM hack wasn't the best way to go about making Crimson Echoes, that's not justification for the entire game being destroyed. I understand why allowing its existence would set a bad legal standard for Square, since copyright laws allow companies to protect their products , and since this would chip away at the protection Square has of Chrono Trigger. But I honestly think that copyright laws give companies too much protection over their products. Just look at Mickey Mouse for proof of this. Disney has made millions and millions of dollars off of Mickey, and copyright laws still won't let his image be used by anyone else, even though Disney doesn't need this money anymore. I can understand why copyright laws give companies so much protection over their products; struggling companies absolutely need it. But already successful companies don't need this protection. Square doesn't need this protection. At least they don't need Chrono Trigger to be protected. Square and Chrono Trigger are so successful and so well established that even if this game means reduced sales for them, these reduced sales are not a threat, and even if other people use Chrono Trigger features in other artwork, they will never really be separated from Square. It's fair to give Square a little bit of this protection until they make a significant amount of money off of the DS port, at least considering what work was put into its creation. But Square does not need unlimited protection of Chrono Trigger. Even if Squaresoft were to somehow lose their copyright on Chrono Trigger (which is so incredibly unlikely), no one else would gain that copyright, which means that it would essentially be in the public domain, which it probably would be by now if Disney weren't so disgustingly protective of their copyrights, and which would still allow Square to profit from it more than anyone else. So I'll conclude by saying that while I'm not in favor of ROM hacks, I'm even less in favor of companies that have already benefited a lot from an artwork forcing people to buy that product when, quite frankly, they'll still make tons of money that they don't need. I wish that Crimson Echoes had been made in a different way, but I wish even more that it was able to exist.

Little Triggers Revisited

I'd like to take a moment to revisit the story posted last week about Squaresoft shutting down a fanfic game. I've changed my position on this, and I think shutting down the project was fully justified. You see, this wasn't simply reusing art assets, characters, the battle system, and everything else from Chrono Trigger into a new game, this was a ROM hack. Essentially, in order to play this game, one would have to own a ROM of Chrono Trigger. For those of you who don't know, a ROM image is a file that allows somebody to play console games on a computer, using emulator software. Essentially, the computer simulates a Super Nintendo and the ROM goes about its business. Emulation is awesome, but very resource intensive and a gray area legally. Emulators themselves are completely legal, but ROMS are not, despite the fact that cartridges are not produced anymore. For the record, I have a portable media player with NES, SNES, and Gameboy emulators on it that I have all of my childhood favorites on. Most of them I owned physical copies of, but not all. But I digress. Anyway, so the issue here is that playing Crimson Echoes would require a person to download a ROM and apply the hack. Essentially, encouraging piracy. Had Sqauresoft allowed this, it would have set a very dangerous legal precedent for them. I've seen many people compare this to Modding, saying things like "Half-Life was popular because of Mods!" First off, Half-Life was not as popular as it was due to modding, Half-Life was popular because it was a damn fine game. In fact, Half-Life was a popular game to mod in part because it was so highly praised and widely played. If you're going to make a mod, you want the most people to be able to play it. Now, modding did give the game its ridiculously long shelf life (it was on Wal-Mart shelves up until its sequel came out) and certainly contributed to its appeal, but basing Half-Life's success on its modability is a faulty argument. Second, a ROM hack is not a mod. Period. Mods involve making changes to a legitimate copy of the game to alter the play experience. Everyone that played a Half-Life mod had to have a copy of Half-Life. A ROM hack is altering an illegal copy a game. Since Chrono Trigger has never been offered in ROM format, the ROM hack is inherently illegal. This isn't to say that legality is the end-all be all. I support the Abandonware concept, even if it isn't legal. However, a company has to constantly protect its copyrights or lose them. Not shutting down this game would have been legally disastrous for the company. Finally, there is a possibility for lost sales here. Chrono Trigger was recently released for the DS. Now, normally a fan work would not be a threat, since most fan works are nowhere near as high quality as a professional release (for proof, look at some trailers for Crimson Echoes. The writing's pretty cringe-worthy) However, to play Crimson Echoes, one would have to have a Chrono Trigger ROM, thus having less motivation to purchase Chrono Trigger DS - or so the logic goes. Now I think it's pretty much BS, but the courts don't, and failure to clamp down on this could be seen as a failure to secure the Chrono Trigger IP. In conclusion, Squaresoft is still a bunch of dicks for waiting until the last minute (and for not responding to the demand in the first place,) but the Crimson Echoes team pretty much brought this on themselves. For an example of a proper way to go about being an over-enthusiastic fan, check out Chrono Symphonic. These guys essentially wrote a script to a Chrono Trigger movie and then composed the score to it, remixing the original songs. Some of them are very high quality. It's a good example of what Jake's always talking about - fans using something they like as inspiration and modifying it to create something new.

Cool Thing of the Week: Barkley, Shut Up And Jam: Gaiden

Jake's post inspired this Cool Thing Of The Week Feature. You see, I've never been able to get into Japanese RPG's at all. I usually get tired of all the grinding and angst and just get bored. But in my lifetime there have been three JRPG's that I have managed to finish: Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, and Tales of Games Presents: Chef Boyardee's Charles Barkley, Shut Up And Jam: Gaiden: Chapter One of the Hoopz Barkley Saga. Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden is absolutely brilliant satire. Not only is it a send up of all things JRPG (and quite a few things regarding PC gaming,) it's a geniuinely good game. The story is interesting, the battle system requires a lot of player interaction, and most importantly there's no grinding. You can pretty much coast through this game, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun. The humor in CB,SUAJ:G is sometimes overt, many times subtle, and always hilarious. This isn't simple parody, that's been done to death. This is a loving homage that knows and embraces the flaws of its inspiration. Everything about the game is ridiculous, from the story to the status effects (normal effects like confusion and poison are replaced by Aspergers and glaucoma, cured by alcohol and "chup") but every thing is played completely straight faced. It's short, fun, and absolutely brilliant. Go play it now.

Little Triggers

Greetings from Japan, everyone. As Backdoorangel stated before, I won't be posting as frequently to The Tartar Sauce for a while, while I'm in Japan. I'm still posting regularly for my new Gaikokujin Blog, but as most of the new ideas I'm getting for posts now are Japan-related, I'm reserving them for that blog. 

But, of course, whenever I get inspired to write about something unrelated to Japan, it goes straight to The Tartar Sauce, and today I stumbled upon this article. If you're feeling too lazy to read its three paragraphs, it basically says that Square Enix has just sent a cease and desist letter to the creators of Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes, a 35-hour game that was based on Chrono Trigger and made entirely by fans (so this post is related to Japan, but not related to my own experiences in Japan). Of course I wish this didn't happen, but if it had to happen then I wish it was during piracy week. If you read my post on music piracy, you'll know that while I'm somewhat against illegal downloading, I'm completely in favor of illegal art forms such as remixes, mash-ups, and, in this case, what could accurately be described as fan-fiction. I feel that in general as long as a consumer pays for a product, allowing the producer to profit from it, then that consumer should be able to use that product as a basis for new production. If someone obtains a recording of a song in an ethical way, then they should legally be able to make a remix of it. If someone legally reads a book (although it's pretty hard to illegally read a book), they should legally be able to make fan-fiction based on it. And, if someone legally obtains a video game, they should legally be able to hack it and make a new video game based on it. The only catch is that everyone should cite their sources when they make fan-art. Thus, culture becomes richer since amateurs are able to respond to influential artworks, and professionals are still able to profit, since people have to obtain their artworks legally, and since when sources are cited it prevents plagiarism and leads to more people finding out about the original artists. 

Therefore, I'm really sad that this new, exciting fan-art was crushed. If you read the article, you'll see that not only will the game not be released, but that its creators destroyed it. No one will ever be able to play it. Does anyone else agree with me that this is a little extreme? Especially since no one was really harmed by this fan-art being created. No one is going to play this game as a substitute for Chrono Trigger. Most of the people who play it will probably do it because they loved the original Chrono Trigger, which they have already purchased and played. And all the people who played the fan-game and not the original would certainly want to play the original afterwards. This game is not plagiarism, since it is an entirely new game. And, judging by how it was created, I bet that this game would have been released for free, or at least without DRM, so the creators wouldn't profit that much from it either. And even if they did, it would be OK, since it's not a copy of the original. This is different from someone downloading an illegal copy of Chrono Trigger. In that case, Squaresoft gets hurt. This is someone downloading a different game that was meant to be downloaded and that promotes the game it was based on. This basically would have been free publicity for Squaresoft. 

And, technically, it still is. But it's bad publicity. This cease and desist letter just makes Squaresoft look like the big bad mega-company treading on the weaker indie game developers. When I read this, I couldn't help but think of an earlier case involving two music groups, Negativland and U2. Heard of U2? Haven't heard of Negativland? Good. That's the point of this story. One time, Negativland sampled a U2 song in one of their songs, and were sued for more money than they even had. U2 didn't need the money. And they weren't harmed by the new song that Negativland made. All that happened was that while an underground band failed, U2 profited and became the epitome of corporate rock, assigning money a higher value than art. That's basically what Squaresoft is doing right now. And that's hard for me to say, since I love Squaresoft games. But I've hated on Squaresoft before and I'll do it again. My love of Squaresoft games doesn't compensate for the fact that right now they're doing something absolutely terrible, abusing their power to no good end by crushing weaker game developers.

Leonard Katzman mentioned in his post that copyright is intended to "promote the progress of science and useful arts." While you could argue that video games are not "useful," you can still see that there's a point at which copyright laws halt the progress of the arts. Copyright laws that prevent people from playing Chrono Trigger for free promote the progress of the arts, since they allow companies like Squaresoft to profit. But copyright laws that prevent people from making tribute games halt the progress of the arts in a really obvious way. At this point, copyright laws simply cause companies that are already rich to benefit while underground artists fail. This is exactly what happened with Chrono Trigger and with U2 and Negativland, and it's terrible. How does this promote the progress of the arts? It doesn't. Squaresoft wouldn't lose any money because of this tribute game (in fact, they may be losing money now that they're preventing it's creation). And even if this legal action were causing them to make more money, this still wouldn't be promoting the progress of the arts unless, for example, Squaresoft couldn't make FFXIII without the money that they were losing (which they aren't actually losing). Sorry if that argument's really convoluted, but basically what I'm trying to say is that copyright laws against remixed art-forms don't promote the progress of the arts. Instead, they stop it. Companies argue that they lose money because of remixed art, but

a) that's debatable, and

b) even if they did, they wouldn't feel it as much as remix artists who can't make their art anymore. Therefore, these laws halt the progress of the arts.

It IS possible to have it both ways. It IS possible to have copyright laws prevent illegal downloading but promote remix culture. This is the only way for copyright to truly promote the progress of the arts.

3D Realms Bids Adieu

I'm rather torn upon hearing that 3D Realms will be closing down. See, 3D realms almost single handedly redefined what games could do back in the '90s. Starting off as Apogee Software, they introduced Duke Nukem (one of my gateway games - see my intro post) and Rise Of The Triad (which you can get now on Good Old Games). They helped produce or publish a number of other games, including Wolfenstein 3D. When they moved into the 3D playing field, they made one of the first FPS' with drivable vehicles (Shadow Warrior) and, of course, Duke Nukem 3D. Duke Nukem 3D is the distilled essence of an FPS. It has a loud, vibrant main character who is a pastiche of genre clichés and a product of his times. It has satisfying weaponry, huge environments that react to your presence, a nice dose of mysogyny, and of course, lots of explosions, gore, and flying limbs. Duke 3D is juvenile, that's for sure, but it knows it and revels in it. Whether it's the Duke rattling off his crude one-liners (the best are outright stolen from Sam Raime's The Evil Dead movies) or the strippers that you can tip for a dance, Duke 3D reeks of adolescent fantasy. Duke is the ultimate badass, hell, take a look at him: Look at that haircut, those bulging muscles, that look of nonchalance as he wades through his enemies (alien invaders out to conquer the Earth and kidnap our "babes" for nefarious purposes) with a cigar clamped between his teeth, clad in a red muscle shirt and sporting a flattop haircut. Duke didn't just parody the '90s tough guy, he was the '90s tough guy. Duke stomps his way through cities, military installations, and alien spaceships, laying waste to alien and environment alike. Duke 3D was the first game to really feature interactive environments. Sure, you could push a button in Quake, but Duke let you so such things as smash apart fire hydrants - and then drink from the resulting spray to heal yourself. Duke could even actually heed nature's call in a restroom, something which still really hasn't caught on, for some reason. Of course, being able to break stuff isn't going to be any fun if the environments aren't interesting. Fortunately, Duke 3D delivers. The environments were varied, ranging from Death Row to a space station to a burnt out hotel. All were populated with destructible objects, beautiful backgrounds, and tons of little details that breathed life into the game and really made the locations feel like a world, and not just a level. There's lots more great things to be said about Duke 3d (most already said better by others,) but really the best thing to do would be to head over to Good Old Games and experience it yourself. So after Duke 3D became a huge hit, 3D Realms naturally followed up with a sequel, titled Duke Nukem Forever. This, unfortunately, would ultimately become 3D Realm's legacy. You see, Duke Nukem Forever started production in 1997 - and still hasn't been released. 12 years later. It's been a running joke for the past decade, with 3D Realms popping in every once in awhile to show off a screenshot or a trailer and insist that work is going great and the game will be released "when it's done" I actually think that the 2001 version would have been perfect: Massive environments, Big-Ass aliens, exotic weaponry (an antique cannon comes into play at one point), crazy vehicles, interactivity, babes, and enough testosterone to drown Cthulhu. It's so ridiculously over the top and epic. Las Vegas is the perfect setting for a Duke game, and it has such a Hollywood Blockbuster feel to it that's very Duke. More importantly, the technology presented would actually justify the game coming out 10 years after its progenator - such scale would never have been possible in 1998. Unfortunately, 3DR got bit by the "OMG GR4PHX!!!11!" bug and switched engines about 8 times, causing the game to never be released. It's sad that this has pretty much been all 3DR is known for, because in that time period they have been involved with some pretty important stuff. Max Payne, which they produced, introduced Bullet Time (which went from innovative feature to overdone cliché in about 6 weeks) and Prey, which they originally started developing but then outsourced when they found that they just couldn't finish the damn thing. 11 years later they actually published it, and to everyone's surprise it was actually good, thus proving that vaporware did, in fact, have a chance of coming out ok. But all in all, I'm glad that 3dR is shut down. First, they can go out with what little dignity they have left, and second, Duke should stay in his 1996 incarnation. PC gaming has grown up since then. A Duke game coming out today would be kind of like The Music Man being introduced to Broadway - that sort of wholesomeness, without a shred of irony, just wouldn't fit compared to Rent and Hair and Avenue Q and all the other "edgy" stuff that's all the rage now. Same with DNF - it simply wouldn't fit in with the likes of Half-Life 2 and F.E.A.R. and Call of Duty. For example, look at the 2008 "No really, we are making progress, we Swear!" trailer put out by 3DR in 2008: Duke comes off less as a total badass and more as a egotistic prick. Which he is. But it's not cool anymore. And his one liner - insinuating that he wants to chase down aliens so he can shit in them- is just creepy. He's less someone you want to save the world and more someone you want to put on a sex offender list. Another interesting point: unlike the last trailer, this doesn't even have any in-game footage. Progress, indeed. Also, the difference in technology between now and 2001 has basically been negligable in terms of what can be accomplished - it just looks prettier. So Duke gains no benefit from coming out in this era then in 2001. In fact, it would have probably suffered for it, seeing how Duke is essentially a cartoon, a caricature. Also, note the tonal shift. The bright colors and over the top action of the first are replaced by Doom 3-esque shadows and grittyness - not exactly Duke's forte. Duke was a product of his time, and his time is gone. Let's just remember him in his prime. 3DR couldn't get their act together and so they went under. They are gone but not forgotten. But seriously, isn't that first trailer epic? I still want to play that game!

Yahoo Search Sucks

It really does. I typed "thetartarsauce" into its toolbar and it sent me to celebrity photos. Google at least has the decency to send me to recipes.com

Cool Thing Of The Week: Launchy

Do you have a cluttered desktop? Do you hate trolling through the Start menu looking for program icons? Are you awesome? If you answered yes to any of these, you should get Launchy. Launchy is a lightweight program that lets you, well, launch any program from your keyboard, quickly and easily. All you have to do is hit Alt + Space to bring up the search box (pictured,) then type the name of the program. Launchy is smart, too- it brings up your most commonly launched programs first. For example, if I type "f", it brings up Firefox. If I want to launch firefox, I just have to hit enter. If I want to launch, say, Fiilezilla, I add an "i" to bring that up. The box disappears when you launch a program or hit enter on an empty textbox. It's got all sorts of plugins and stuff that I never bother with, but if you're a plugin junky like BackdoorAngel is then you'll probably have lots of fun. Anyway, I have it on every installation of Windows and count it as essential. Check it out.

Silly Impromptu Internet Uprisings. Also, Save Chuck!

It seems the fans of geeky, action-comedy series Chuck have taken to bombarding the "News From You" section of NBC (basically the editorial) with Chuck testimonials. NBC has been unclear as to whether or not there will be a third season of Chuck for some time now. The show has gathered a rather large cult following fairly quickly over its first two seasons, and, with the season finale recently released, well, just check out the recent posts:

There are hundreds of pages of this on the site, and I don't think it's going to end soon. If you haven't had a chance to see chuck, I highly reccomend you check it out. The show is really, really good. Very good dialog, funny, addictive (if not a little ridiculous) plot, good action, and quirky characters. If I had to compare it to something I'd say it's like a mix of Burn Notice (which I absolutely love) and The IT Crowd/ Big Bang Theory. If you're already a fan of chuck, why not post a testimonial? It certaintly couldn't hurt. You'll need a myNBC account to do it, but it's fairly straight forward. Anyways, good luck, Chuck!

Cool Thing Of The Week: Girl Genius

Webcomics are a mixed bunch. Usually they're labors of love done by amateur hobbyists, with varying degrees of quality and consistency. Have you ever heard that saying that you can only pick two out of three options for service - good, fast, or cheap? Meaning that you can get good service cheap, but it won't be fast, fast and cheap, but not good, etc. Well, webcomics tend to have the same thing, but with different qualifiers - Good art, good writing, and good updating schedule. For example, Erfworld and Order of The Stick, both of which are brilliantly written with great art (even though one has stick figures,) have update schedules that can most kindly be described as "erratic." Not to mention the fact that they're both hosted on Giant In the Playground, which always takes ages to load. Girl Genius is the rare example of a comic that hits all three. Perhaps because it started as a print comic that transitioned into a webcomic, or perhaps because the minds behind it is the veteran comic artist and writer duo Phil and Kaja Foglio, who have the additional advantage of being married and thus insulated against the communications breakdowns that plague internet collaborations. Whatever it is, Girl Genius manages to produce amazing work three days a week, with few interruptions. I've been reading it for the past three years, and not once have I been dissapointed with the story or visuals. I'm a sucker for anything steampunk (or Gaslamp Fantasy as the Foglios prefer to call it) and Girl Genius delivers an epic story with great characters, great plot twists, and great visuals. The world is unique and fully realized, the characters have genuine growth and complex motivations, and the comic pulls off the incredible by being both dramatic and hilarious. Check it out, it's totally worth your time.