Alan Wake To Be Pulled From Stores

I don't often have an opportunity to mention on this blog that the music industry is awful. Well, an opportunity has presented itself, so here it goes: The music industry is awful.

Two days from now, Alan Wake will be removed from stores, because the licenses for music used in the game are expiring. People who already bought the game should not panic; it's highly unlikely that already-purchased copies will be taken away from customers in the near future, and I've seen no evidence that software updates will be removing any content from those existing copies. If you bought the game on Steam, for example, it will remain intact in your Steam library, likely for as long as Steam exists. Furthermore, the semi-canon sequel/spinoff Alan Wake's American Nightmare will remain in stores, so there's no rush to buy it. However, if you still haven't played the original Alan Wake, your time to purchase a legal copy of the game is running out.

In the meantime, it's 90% off (from $29.99 to $2.99):

Alan Wake sale on @steam_games 90% discount starting 5/13. Game will be removed from stores after 5/15 due to expiring music licenses. pic.twitter.com/y10DPgY8Q0

— Remedy Entertainment (@remedygames) May 12, 2017

I should clarify that Steam is not the only store with a 90% discount on Alan Wake. The tweet above mentions only the Steam store because, as explained in another tweet, it's the only store on which developer Remedy Entertainment can control the pricing of the game. However, other stores want to compete, and other stores also want to sell as many copies of Alan Wake as possible before they are no longer allowed to sell it.

I don't have time to check every online retailer, but I've personally checked two other great stores, GOG.com and The Humble Store, and both of them also have a 90% discount on Alan Wake. Furthermore, both of these stores are arguably better than Steam, because they both offer DRM-free copies. The Steam version (last time I checked) will launch only through the Steam client.

Another difference between the stores is that GOG.com and The Humble Store both have a 90% discount on American Nightmare (from $9.99 to $0.99), while the Steam store still has the game at full price (seemingly by accident) and won't be offering an equivalent 90% discount on American Nightmare until tomorrow. All three stores, however, already have a 90% discount on the series as a whole, so if you buy the Alan Wake Franchise pack on Steam (which is discounted from $39.99 to $3.99), you're effectively getting the 90% discount on American Nightmare as well. I can't strongly recommend American Nightmare, anyway, as my feelings about the game are mixed, but if you're intent on buying it, now is probably a good time.

I can't say this is the best time to buy either of the Alan Wake games, because they were once featured in a name-your-own-price Humble Bundle, which means smart shoppers could have acquired DRM-free copies of both games for only a few cents. But, without a time machine, the current deal is likely the best you'll ever see... unless, of course, you opt for piracy instead and download the game for free, which will be the only option after the game disappears from stores on May 15th.

Regarding piracy, there are times when it is morally (if not legally) justifiable. I went into detail about the pricing, in the paragraphs above, as a public service to those who wish to acquire a legal copy while they can. However, don't think I'm trying to convince you to spend money on the game. Two days from now, it will essentially be abandonware. I'm generally against piracy, but if a game cannot be acquired legally then I think piracy is not only harmless but also necessary for the historical preservation of the game in question. If the publisher doesn't want to sell it, you should not feel obligated to pay for it. The licensed music in the game is certainly not abandonware, but I have no sympathy for the music industry, so I honestly don't care. Nobody who illegally downloads Alan Wake will be doing so just for the music.

In any case, whether you pay for the game or not, I do recommend playing it. The ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, though, which is more frustrating now than ever before, because this latest turn of events does not bode well for the anticipated sequel. I'm sure Remedy would like to continue the series someday, but it's probably not happening anytime soon if they can't even afford to keep the first game in digital stores. If I'm wrong and an Alan Wake 2 is in the works, they probably shouldn't release it while legally downloading the original game is impossible, because newcomers to the series might be less likely to buy the sequel if they can't easily play the original game first.

Fortunately, the current state of affairs is not necessarily permanent. If a proper sequel to Alan Wake is ever finished, I suspect they'll renew the music license at that time (or, if we're less lucky, they'll release an edited version with offending music removed). On the other hand, if the franchise has truly been laid to rest and plans for a sequel are permanently shelved, it might be a long time before any more copies of the original are sold. I doubt that Microsoft cares much about the franchise — they never did — so they'll probably be content to sit on the publishing rights while doing nothing with them for years to come.

Piracy

I don't want to get into the habit of making bad cartoons in Paint, but I made this one, so here it is.

And now a long disclaimer.

It's not that I care so much about piracy. If you're going to do it, then do it. I've done it a couple of times myself, so I'm not here to pass judgement. I'm not even going to say it's "wrong" (morally or otherwise). I'll leave that in the hands of the justice system or whichever supernatural being you like. The fact that a law exists doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad person for not following it. You might be a terrible person anyway, but if you die tomorrow and end up in your preferred version of Hell for all eternity, it's probably not because you failed to obey the speed limit, and it's probably not because you downloaded a video game without paying for it.

Some will tell you that software piracy is essentially theft and that it harms the video game developers and the industry as a whole, but it's pretty obvious that such claims are still up for debate. Since I don't have any hard evidence that software piracy has ever caused a video game developer to go hungry, I won't tell you what to do. Make your own decision and live with it.

What I don't like are the attempts to justify piracy and the claims that it helps the industry in some counter-intuitive way. Let's get something straight: People download games illegally because they don't want to pay for them. It's that simple. They can take a game for free instead of paying, so they do it. Surely there are those who engage in piracy for the sake of trying a game before they decide to buy it, but I have serious doubts that these conscientious pirates are the majority. There are others who use piracy as a way of boycotting a publisher or developer, but if you want to commit to a boycott, you should have the self-control to go without the product of the company you're boycotting. In any case, for many if not the vast majority, piracy is nothing more than an attempt to get something for nothing.

This is why it's so transparently pathetic when pirates try to justify what they do. The fact that they even feel the need to justify piracy at all is kind of troubling. If you're comfortable with your own choices and your personal reasons for those choices, you shouldn't need to explain them in detail to everyone. But instead of owning up to the fact that they're violating copyright law for personal gain, accepting that decision for what it is, and ignoring the haters, they desperately try to come up with reasons that piracy is either harmless or somehow beneficial to all parties involved. (Are they trying to convince me, or are they trying to convince themselves?) I'll admit that some of their arguments are plausible, even when the claims on which they base these arguments are completely unverifiable, but let's be honest. It's denial, plain and simple.

One of the most popular (and perhaps most bone-headed) justifications of piracy goes something like this: "But it's not stealing!" Since theft usually means taking something from someone else, while software piracy typically involves making a copy while leaving the original intact instead of taking it away, many argue that piracy is not the same as theft. Based on that definition of theft, this is absolutely true. After all, there's a reason we use a different word. But is everything that isn't "theft" automatically justified?

It's fine to point out that piracy isn't stealing if you're actually responding to claims that piracy and theft are one in the same, but I've had people tell me repeatedly that "it's not stealing" even when the concept of stealing hadn't been brought up in the discussion at all. It's as if people believe that "it's not stealing" is the end-all argument in favor of doing whatever you want regardless of context. Frankly, I don't care that piracy isn't theft. Does it really matter? If piracy is wrong, then quibbling over semantics doesn't make it less wrong. If piracy isn't wrong, then comparing it to a serious crime isn't helping your case.

I'd also like to point out that it doesn't matter whether the publisher loses a copy. In the age of digital distribution, the idea of counting copies of a product is meaningless. (In fact, the entire concept of theft, in the traditional sense, is equally meaningless in this context.) What the publisher loses due to piracy, in theory, is a potential sale.

This leads to the obvious "but I wasn't going to buy it anyway." The implication is that no potential sale is lost because the pirate never would have spent any money on the product even if piracy weren't an option. Fair enough, if it's true, but I suspect it rarely is. People who illegally download games want to play games, and I see no reason to assume that the average pirate wants to play games any less than the average customer. The only obvious difference is that the pirate isn't afraid to break the rules. The fact that someone downloads a game illegally to save money is no indication that this person would never spend money on games.

But since we'll never have reliable data on the percentage of pirates who would have been paying customers if piracy weren't an option, we can only guess about piracy's overall effect on sales. I have no doubt that a significant number of pirates would buy games if they had to, but there are other factors to consider.

Some would argue that piracy actually helps sales by giving more exposure to certain games. This isn't entirely unreasonable, but there's no real evidence for it. Accepting this viewpoint requires us to assume either that each pirate, on average, perhaps through word-of-mouth, effectively convinces more than one other person to buy the game, or that there are a whole lot of those conscientious pirates who illegally download a game to try it out and then buy a legitimate copy if they like it. I think either scenario is unlikely.

Those few who do adhere to the "try it before you buy it" philosophy, though, are okay in my book. I can't complain. If the owners of a game don't want people to pirate the full version of their game to use it as a demo, they should release a free demo. In fact, there's no excuse for not releasing a demo. Either the developers are lazy (which probably means the game is bad), or they're afraid that letting people play the game before they buy it will lead to a decrease in sales (which almost surely means the game is bad). Unfortunately, you don't need to make a good game to get rich. The video game industry is like any other business. The publishers don't want you to make an informed decision; they just want you to buy. That's why they try so hard to get us to pre-order their games even before a single review has been written.

But piracy isn't some form of vigilante justice. Those who use their general dissatisfaction with the state of the industry to justify piracy seem to have this odd delusion that they're affecting things in a positive way. They claim they'll buy the games made by the developers who allegedly deserve their money and pirate everything else. The idea is to avoid rewarding bad behavior, which sounds nice. But pirating a game because it was made by a developer you hate isn't sending the right message. If they know people are pirating their game, it tells them two things. The first is that people want their game. The second is that they need to crack down on piracy so these people who want their game are forced to pay.

Even if piracy does have some positive net effect, it's still ridiculous to pretend that people engage in piracy for this reason. Piracy isn't about being a hero. It's about each individual doing what's best for himself, and any theoretical benefits are nothing more than an unintended side-effect which proves useful for desperate after-the-fact rationalization.

Humble Bundle Strikes Again

As many of us already know, the sixth incarnation of the Humble Indie Bundle is on sale right now, and will be available for another six days. I didn't exactly come here to plug it — I'm not on their payroll — but it's hard not to say a few nice things about a pack of games that you can buy for almost nothing. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, read this so I don't have to explain.) It's been more than two years since the very first Humble Bundle, and they've gotten a whole lot of good press since then, so there's no need for me to rave about how awesome it is. But, for the record, it's pretty neat.

Of course, despite the pay-what-you-want model, not everyone loves Humble Bundle. Some game developers have expressed doubts that being part of a Humble Bundle sale is really a profitable and worthwhile venture. (Customers can choose where their money goes, and the recommended "default split" for the current bundle is 65% to developers, 20% to charity, and 15% to Humble Bundle, Inc., but the average amount, per game sold, that a developer gets is probably rather low, since so many consumers will pay as little as possible instead of paying what they honestly believe the games are worth.)

Furthermore, a lot of people have some bad things to say about indie games in general. While many have taken the extreme view that so-called "indie" developers are the last hope for originality in a stagnating video game market saturated with too many nearly identical and equally overpriced first-person shooters, others go to the opposite extreme; they look at indie games and see cheaply made, outdated, pretentious hipster trash. In particular, any mention of "retro graphics" is sure to draw a lot of mockery and criticism, though the indie developers keep using this term in marketing their games, probably for the sake of appealing to older players and anyone else who treats "retro" as a codeword for cool.

If you like indie games and you don't have a job, the Humble Bundle is perfect for you. On the other hand, if you're not fond of indie games and other "retro" stuff, you should probably pass on this deal. The games in a Humble Bundle sale generally aren't the big-budget, high-definition, mainstream type. There's no such thing as a Humble Call of Duty Bundle as of yet, so good luck naming your own price for that.

I should also mention that "pay what you want" is slightly misleading... but only slightly. Technically, it's true, but the Humble Bundle guys aren't idiots; they do employ a few tricks to encourage customers to spend more than the bare minimum. (Otherwise, they'd probably never make any money, except from the generous and wealthy few who donate thousands of dollars.) While you can pay as little as one cent for the five core games that make up the bundle, you won't really be getting the whole bundle. There are always a few extra games, some added later in the sale, reserved for those who spend more than the average amount. (You'll also have to spend at least a dollar if you want keys to activate the games on Steam.) Since a lot of people choose to exceed the average contribution by one cent, so they can get all of the games, that average typically creeps upward slowly throughout the sale.

With the four games that were just added yesterday, Humble Indie Bundle 6 is now up to ten games: Rochard, Shatter, Space Pirates and Zombies, Torchlight, and Vessel can be stolen for a penny, but you'll have to beat the average (just above $6.00 now) to get Dustforce, Bit.Trip Runner, Gratuitous Space Battles, Jamestown, and Wizorb as well. Five games for a penny is great, but ten games for six bucks and change is pretty good too.

It's worth noting, however, that Humble Bundles often include a few repeats, and this one is no exception. Specifically, Bit.Trip Runner, Gratuitous Space Battles, and Jamestown were included in Humble Indie Bundle 4, and Humble Indie Bundle 4 included (as a bonus) the first five games from Humble Indie Bundle 3. Sometimes, if you already own a previous bundle, you might find that paying above the average for the next one isn't as great of a deal as you might have hoped. Since activating a bundle's Steam key won't give you giftable copies of any games you already own, there's no benefit to buying a game twice. You'll just have to decide whether the other games in the pack are worth your hard-earned pocket change.

When the fifth Humble Indie Bundle came out last spring, I already owned Psychonauts, and none of the other games seemed appealing at the time, so I passed. In retrospect, I'm starting to regret this decision, since I've heard such good things about Bastion and some of the other games. I can only hope they'll be repeated in future sales. This time, I'm facing a similar dilemma: I already own Torchlight — arguably the most important game on the list, considering the highly anticipated release of Torchlight II last week — and I also bought Humble Indie Bundle 4 last winter — easily the best video game purchase I've made in recent memory. So I already own four of the games in Humble Indie Bundle 6, but six bucks for the remaining six games is still a sweet deal.

To put things in the proper perspective, Dustforce alone is currently $9.99 on Steam.

All in all, you can't really go wrong with the Humble Indie Bundle, since any one game is typically worth more than what you'll pay for the whole pack. And if you're content with only getting the five base games, you could always be a cheapskate and pay only a cent. Of course, if you do this, Humble Bundle, Inc. probably suffers a net loss due to bandwidth and transaction fees. Honestly, you might as well pirate the games, and I guess that's why so many people do so despite the fact that the games are practically free. Or maybe they just can't be bothered to put in their credit card information. Or maybe they don't have credit cards. Or maybe they pirate things out of principle because they're super bad-ass renegades who break all the rules because shut up.

The games in the Humble Bundle aren't just cheap. They're also free of digital rights management, playable on every operating system that matters, and available in torrent form in addition to a direct download. In other words, they've made an effort to appease even the pickiest of players. They've eliminated every good reason to pirate their games, but it still hasn't eliminated piracy.

I'm getting a bit off-topic now, but this is something to remember next time someone tries to justify piracy by citing high prices, intrusive DRM, inconvenience, or a general desire to deliver a slap in the face to big, evil corporations like Electronic Arts. The fact is that people turn to piracy no matter how low the price of the game, or how reasonable the publisher's behavior, just to avoid paying at all. It's not my place to judge those who engage in software piracy — the extent to which it actually harms the game industry is still up for debate — but pirates should just accept that what they're doing is a selfish act and nothing more. They should be able to make their decision and live with it, without trying to rationalize it after the fact, but they still come up with all kinds of excuses and pass the blame around. Simply put, they're in denial.

For those of us who don't mind sending a few dollars to the hard-working people who make our favorite pastime possible, the Humble Bundle is a great opportunity to grab a few interesting games without breaking the bank.