I. Whereupon Our Hero Does the Right Thing

One of the most successful PC games of all time is Blizzard Entertainment’s StarCraft. It has sold approximately nine million copies since it’s release in 1998. It is, by all accounts, something of a religion in South Korea. It is to my eternal shame that although I have been playing PC games since the late 80s I never finished the game. Indeed, I had never even owned it until recently. When I was in high school, I played the game mostly at a friend’s house and at netcafé’s and so never progressed all the way to the end.

In June of 2007, feeling slightly bad about this, I took the opportunity to purchase a copy of the game. A friend of mine picked it up for AUS$10 and I very happily paid him back for it. $10! For a classic of gaming! What a steal².

But still I didn’t finish it. There was always something else to do and although I pottered around here and there I could never muster up the motivation to play through the entire campaign. I logged onto to multiplayer on occasion but after 10 years you can imagine the type of people that still play this game online. They have become almost one with the product. More machine now than man. Twisted and evil. They would kick my ass.

So I left the game for a while.

II. Whereupon the Fire is Rekindled

About two years ago Blizzard announced they were working on the sequel to StarCraft, imaginatively titled StarCraft II. Blizzard is notorious for taking a very, very long time to develop its games so no one expected anything especially soon. And that’s probably a good thing since it is, as I say, almost two years later and the game’s still not out.

To keep our appetite whetted (whet?) Blizzard recently released a clip of two of its developers playing an alpha build of the game. Called the StarCraft II Battle Report, I watched it the way an ex-smoker watches someone sucking down on a Marlboro. I had to play it. And if I couldn’t play it I oculd at least play the next best thing to it. It didn’t matter that most of what they were doing in the video wasn’t possible in the original version. I just wanted to be in that universe again.

I contacted a friend who’d been similarly afflicted and after spending a good portion of Friday afternoon discussing how awesome it would be rushed home to fire it up and play a few games. My wife was in Tokyo for the weekend which was perfect. She dislikes me wasting time playing games but with her not home it seemed like God himself was trying to tell me to play this game.

In the back-and-forth my friend had informed me it was now possible to download the game directly from Blizzard. All you needed was your CD key and you were then able to download it to any computer you were on. Now I love this type of thing. It’s why I have a terribly bad thing for Steam, the digital content delivery platform developed by Valve Entertainment for their Half-Life franchise.

Starting up my web browser, I pointed it at Blizzard’s site and was quickly setting up my account for their online store. It was all smiles until I got to the point where I needed to enter my key. Checking my email I typed in the code and was promptly informed that my key was already registered to another user. Surely this couldn’t be right. The game might have been purchased for $10 but it had been purchased new.

But it was true. I tried the key a few times but it was no good. The site refused to budge. A Google search promptly revealed the ansewr. Some enterprising individual had created a key generator for the game and it was common knowledge that you could use the keys it generated to download the game for free from Blizzard. Whoever had entered my code had stumbled upon it by chance. Unfortunately, Blizzard’s site didn’t recognise this and as far as they were concerned the game was now this person’s.

This is where it gets a little sad³. Still desperate to play the game I did the only thing I could do at 9 pm that night. I bought it again. This time for US$15 but this time directly from Blizzard, secure in the knowledge that they would recognise me as the legitimate owner of the game.

III. Whereupon God Shows Displeasure Towards Our Hero

I ended up playing StarCraft a few more times over the weekend but as good as the game is, it is 10 years old. I missed a lot of the innovations that have come to the RTS genre StarCraft helped establish. There is little squad combat in StarCraft and the game does next to nothing to help you stay organised and on top of things. For Korean masters this is perhaps part of the fun but for me it’s part of the not fun.

My collection of RTS games does not begin and end with a $10 (now $15⁴) copy of StarCraft, however. I also own a copy of one of StarCraft‘s illustrious successors, Relic Entertainment’s Company of Heroes.

I purchased Company of Heroes a month after StarCraft in July of 2007. It is an excellent game. It builds on a lot of what StarCraft did and takes great pains to flesh out the tactical dimension games in the RTS genre often neglect⁵. I purchased it through Steam and have never had a physical copy of the game. As far as I’m concerned it lives inside Steam. Whenever I log in to Steam, no matter where I am, I have the option of playing it. It downloads updates automatically and remembers my settings.

Feeling in the mood for an RTS that was slightly more cutting edge, I loaded up Company of Heroes. However, instead of loading the game presented me with a login form for Relic Online. I’ll admit it’s been a while since I last played Company of Heroes — probably around about a year — but I never remember needing to sign up for something called Relic Online just to play my game.

Oh well, I shrugged. I suppose this is what everyone does these days. I chose my usual username, filled out the remaining details and clicked ‘Create’. But of course it didn’t create. Instead it informed me that my CD key was already in use and that my account had now been banned. I was provided with an email address to contact to have the notice explained further. That was it.

Now I’ve written about what happened next (or didn’t happen, as the case may be) so I won’t repeat it here. Suffice to say that the problem turned out to be an old .ini file from a previous installation of the game. I don’t know why that .ini file had a stolen CD key in it. I guess that’s just one I’ll find out when I die.

IV. Whereupon the Ire is Rekindled

So here’s the thing. Over the space of a week, with two different games that I paid money to play, I was barred from doing so. In one of the cases I had to repurchase the game. In the other I spent about a week wrangling with customer support before I discovered what was wrong and fixed it. In neither of these cases was I able to play the game I had purchased, even when I was offline. In neither of these cases did anyone ever apologise. In neither of these cases did I, as far as I can tell, do anything wrong. And yet at the end of the day I was the one who was screwed.

It did not pass without notice that if I had just pirated the games I would have been able to enjoy them. I considered doing this several times but decided not to each time. Why should I? Why should I, a person who has paid money for these products, pirate them and receive an inferior product? Why shouldn’t I, a person who has paid money for these products, not be extended the courtesy of support from the developer?

This is what media companies need to understand. Call us old-fashioned but we as consumers expect something when we purchase a product: we expect to be able to use that product. We don’t expect to have to negotiate with someone via email to let us use the product. We don’t expect to have to purchase the product again. We just expect it will work. Now is that unreasonable? Is that asking too much? Is that something we should even need to ask?

We’re waiting for your answer.

Since I frequently get reactions to things I write about on this blog (much to my surprise) I thought in light of my failure to get a response from Relic Entertainment I’d write them a letter and publish it here. Letters don’t usually have titles but if mine did it would be called, ‘Hi, I want to play the game I bought from you with real money.’

Dear Relic,

I would like to be able to play my game. It is called Company of Heroes. I purchased it from you via Steam on 22 July 2007 at 7:54 am. I know the exact date and time I purchased it because I still have the email receipt that Steam sent me.

Unfortunately for me, you do not seem to know this. When I tried to play my game on the weekend of the 24th/25th I was taken to a new Relic Online login screen that I had not previously seen. After attempting to register an account with your service I was told that my serial number had already been used and my account was now banned. This confused me since I do not have an account with Relic Online and had never previously entered my serial number while playing your game.

Your service suggested that if there was a problem I contact coh-abuse@relic.com. Since there was a problem I did contact coh-abuse@relic.com. This was on the morning of Sunday 25 January 2009 my time (Saturday your time). I had not received a response on Sunday. Or Monday. Or Tuesday. It is now Wednesday and I still have not received a response (more than 80 hours later). I have written to you again asking that my inquiry be answered. This too has not had a response.

I would like to be able to play my game. I purchased it from you with real money and I am angry that this does not seem to matter to you. I have enjoyed your games in the past and was thinking about purchasing future games from you. I am now reconsidering this decision.

Please let me play my game. (I cannot believe I just had to ask that.)

Kind Regards,

Michael Camilleri

The logic behind the success of advertising to people using a search engine is relatively straightforward. You go to Google for one reason: you’re looking for something. If it’s something someone else can provide to you then they’re interested in getting your attention and (and really this is the crucial part) you’re interested in clicking their link. But if you go to Facebook or MySpace how interested are you in what someone is pushing on you? Regardless of how-well-targeted it is?

Advertising in social networks reminds me of when a friend recommends you go and see a movie. How successful is that ever? I can count the number of times on one hand I think someone’s said I ‘must see’ a film and I’ve actually done it. Certainly, I can think of plenty of times I’ve all but begged my friends to see a film and found that seemingly the more I’m interested in the movie the less they are. This goes for TV shows, music, podcasts and just about any other content you can think of. So difficult is it, in fact, that I’ve developed a tactic for suggesting things without suggesting thing; having them ‘come up’ in conversation and gently steering the person into thinking that they’re coming up with the idea of going.

Because isn’t that what it’s really about? We want to believe we made the choice. We don’t want to think that we do whatever someone else tells us to. And as soon as we start feeling they are our resistance levels increase dramatically.

I want to be clear to contrast this from asking for help from our friends. Here the recommendations are almost always acted upon but that’s because we’re choosing to elicit them them. Recommendations aren’t being pushed in this instance, they’re being pulled. When people talk about the huge influence our friends have on us, I tend to think they’re talking about their influence when we’ve decided it’s time to make a decision and we start looking for advice. Not when we’re trying to watch something on TV.

Which brings us back to the success of social networking advertising. Because how do you monetise pulled recommendations? If we jump onto the Flixster Facebook application, for instance, to see what our friends think we’re interested in what our friends think, not on ads being served up to us because of what our friends think. I guess if someone serves us up some cinema locations it’d be relevant, but that seems a much, much, much smaller potential pool of advertisers. And a correspondingly much, much, much smaller pool of money.

I would like to begin by saying I am something of a junk food connoisseur. Some people may enjoy sampling the local delicacies when they move to a new city, I like to try out the hamburgers. It is true I have a propensity for junk food that has yet to impact on my figure. I realise I have now all but invited fate to send me colon cancer. I’ll be sure to keep you up to date as that progresses.

Sometimes I enjoy packets of chips (although the selection in this country is terrible) and sometimes I enjoy chocolate bars (the selection of which is even worse). And sometimes I eat at McDonald’s. Waking up late this morning I had no time to pack a proper a lunch and so at 12.30 this afternoon I wandered down to the local Golden Arches.

Now what I want to point out was not something to do with food. It was instead something I noticed on the paper placement that your meal is put on. ドナルド・マクドナルド. At first I couldn’t work out what this was supposed to be. The second word was cleared ‘McDonald’ (or ‘McDonald’s’) but the first word left me stumped. Occasionally I find katakana incredibly difficult to read. Although the words are almost always English in origin the transformation they go through as they are assimilated into Japanese sometimes renders them incomprehensible. So I decided to write it out in romaji. I find that often helps.

So there it was: Donarudo Makudonarudo. Then the penny dropped. I recognised the little logo of the house in the bottom corner of the placemat. This was an advertisment for Ronald McDonald House Charities. Except it wasn’t called Ronald McDonald House. It was called Donald McDonald House.

Maybe it’s me and my 6-year-old level of humour (I still find it hilarious when someone adds ‘on wheels’ to the title of Wikipedia entries) but the name Donald McDonald is so silly it can’t help but crack me up. At first I was content to leave it at that but when I thought about writing it up for the blog it seemed like I probably ought to put a little bit more effort into it. Some research if you will. Who is Donald McDonald and what was the problem with Ronald McDonald?

Let me begin by saying I’ve never understood why clowns are supposed to be scary. I don’t think they’re particularly funny (I have a discerning 6-year-old sense of humour) but I don’t think they’re particularly scary either. That was until I went looking on the net for pictures. I am now ready to completely revise my original position. I’m not sure what it is but something is very, very wrong here. I cannot for the life of me understand how this guy is supposed to make children want to come to McDonald’s. Little wonder, if this story is true, that the venerable mascot may be up for replacement (although I still see him around everywhere).

Unfortunately the reasons for the name change aren’t so easy to come by. So far I’ve found a few people saying it’s because ‘Ronald’ is difficult for the Japanese to pronounce (although is ‘Donald McDonald’ really any easier?) but nothing official. Wikipedia notes the different but doesn’t make much of it. I’m willing to believe pronunciation was the reason McDonald’s isn’t really even known as ‘McDonald’s’ over here but instead the Japanified ‘Makudonarudo’.

All of this really invites the question, if the name was too difficult why bother with the character in the first place? Does McDonald’s really need a mascot? The Happy Meal almost always features characters from TV and film, why have an ugly clown? Just so there’s someone to put on a bench out front? I don’t know. Maybe kids go wild for the guy. I suppose if there wasn’t a Ronald (or Donald) who would teach the kids to do this?

Still, try as I might, it’s not always easy to give Apple money. Especially when you’re in a different country to them. As most people are aware Apple segments their online stores by country. If you don’t have a credit card issued from a bank in the respective country it’s almost impossible to purchase from the store. This is the case even if your credit card will otherwise work in that country (as mine does). Why does Apple do this? I’m sure they’d blame the rightsholders who license content for the store and maybe they’d be right. I can’t help but think it’s a nice way for Apple to extract maximum value from different markets.

Now I’m a believer in both the power of globalisation and the power of the Internet and I’d be damned if some artificial trade barrier was going to stop my monetary transaction. Also, and more importantly, music is cheaper at the US iTunes Store. This is the case even when you take into account the Australian dollar-US dollar exchange rate. After my last foray into downloading from iTunes I was also eager to give it another whirl and see for myself if those download problems weren’t first day jetters after all.

First step was to try to create an account at the store. I knew it probably wasn’t going to work but I felt it was worth a try. But nope, no sooner had I entered my credit card details than Apple informed me no can do. Not put off I moved onto Plan B.

I was aware that not so long ago Apple had started taking PayPal payments. Well, I had a PayPal account, I thought. It was connected to the Australian subsidiary but they weren’t to know that. Turns out they were to know that. I didn’t progress any further than I had with my direct credit card attempt.

Now it was time to tap into the vast data store that is the Internet. With Google at my side I tried looking for sites talking about purchasing from the iTunes Store in the US. If there are any doubts in your mind as to how US-centric the web is try that search on for size. I had more luck finding information on purchasing from the Japanese iTunes Store. You could almost see Fate chuckling at me.

It was MetaFilter which came to the rescue with their excellent and answer subsite. A bright spark there explained iTunes Gift Cards could not only be redeemed by those outside the country but could be used to set up an account without an associated credit card. My prayers had been answered! Or almost answered. There was one small snag. It turns out you can’t buy iTunes Gift Cards for the US store outside of the US. Gift cards in other regions are tied to their version of iTunes. I’d known it was too good to be true. And then I remembered eBay.

Blessed, blessed eBay: where you can find almost anything for sale. And there they were! Two US$15 iTunes Cards for about US$34. Sure there was a markup but it wasn’t much and the guy was willing to email me the codes. Instant gratification! I quickly paid my knight in shining armour, set up Outlook to check for new messages every minute and waited. It didn’t take long. Soon the codes were in my inbox and almost as quickly punched into the iTunes Store. Oh, sure there were a few extra steps. I did have to create an identity for myself in the US. I do hope Apple doesn’t actually try to contact the phone number I provided. Unless they want to order a Domino’s pizza, that is.

So I was in. And what a rush! There was something almost illicit about it. My hands trembled as I looked over all that I could purchase. For some reason it hadn’t occurred to me that I would now be able to purchase not only cheap music but movies and television shows. I could download episodes of the Daily Show! The excitement in the room was palpable.

Still, as tempting as it might have been to order a TV show or a movie (Oh my God! I just remembered they have old Law and Order episodes!) I told myself to remember why I was there. I was there to purchase music. This was for science. I couldn’t let myself be distracted by the bright lights and vivid colours of Pixar’s movies. Clicking on the iTunes Plus link I delved further into the shop.

I already knew what album I wanted. It was the Queen Greatest Hits CD I’d seen on the Australian store for $20. $20?! Ha! Who did they think I was? Joe Average Knucklehead? I wasn’t going to pay $20 for something that came to me down an Internet tube! At least not when it was possible, at least in theory, to get the very same content for a lower price.

Unfortunately Fate hadn’t finished laughing yet. See it turns out in Australia Queen’s music is licensed by EMI. But in the United States its handled by Hollywood Records (who distributed through Universal). Since EMI is the only major label to agree to selling its music DRM-free this meant that while I could buy Queen in the iTunes Plus format in Australia (so long as I didn’t mind being milked) I couldn’t from the US store. Aren’t intellectual property laws wonderful!

But not being able to download the album I wanted was only a minor inconvenience. There were still plenty of other fish in the sea. I like AIR and noticed they had released a new album. After briefly checking out some reviews to ensure it wasn’t another 10,000 Hz Legend I clicked to go to the checkout and start downloading.

Now the last time I downloaded something from iTunes it was not a pleasant experience. Komala assured me this wasn’t typical of regular usage and I’m pleased to confirm she is correct. The downloading began straightaway and went off without a hitch. In about five minutes or so I’d sucked down the whole thing and it was only sheer restraint that prevented me from grabbing something else.

All in all, this time around the whole thing was very positive (once I’d set up the account that is). It was more contrived than it ought to have been for 2007 but such is the current state of intellectual property. With any luck the new Amazon store that’s set to launch later this year will make this whole process a lot easier. In which case I’ll give up fighting to give Apple my money. I don’t like Steve Jobs that much.

And to be honest, so far my experience has been pretty positive. I created an account at the AllofMP3 web site in about a minute, added US$25 to my account and started looking for music to grab. I had already downloaded the AllTunes program that acts as an iTunes-esque front-end for the store but once I realised that it was using Internet Explorer’s Trident rendering engine I returned to the warm embrace of Firefox to surf around their web interface.

I selected three albums that I was interested in – Gnarls Barkley’s St. Elsewhere, Lily Allen’s Alright, Still and Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm – and had the most difficult moment of the entire experience, deciding what quality I wanted them in. Granted at the price you pay at AllofMP3 there’s really not that much difference. In the end it was the thought of the extra space it would take up on my HDD and the fact that the speakers I have here really aren’t good enough to tell the difference between lossy and lossless, at least for pop music, that prompted me to just go for 192 kbps mp3s. After all, that’s good enough for most of the other music I have on my computer.

There’s a slight delay between the ‘purchase’ of the tracks and when you can actually download them. Since downloading them via the web interface requires you to manually go through right-clicking each one and saving to your computer I fired up AllTunes once more and it automatically started downloading away. Pretty soon they were done and on my computer. Frankly, I was almost disappointed. I expected there to be more problems.

The tracks come with some rudimentary tag information but still required some editing to match the music already in my iTunes database. Oh, and there was no album art. Thankfully, Coveralia was to the rescue and that problem was solved. All in all, it was a pretty positive experience and I can see myself purchasing more music from AllofMP3 in the future. Why download it from a Russian site when I could just get it for free? Well, because I have a job now, I feel like I should have the disposable income to afford this type of thing and, most important of all, I really want to send a message to the record companies that I will pay for music but I want it to be cheap, I want it to be easy and I want it to be in a format convenient for me without digital rights management technology preventing me from using it where I want and when I want.

Hopefully AllofMP3 can make more beautiful music together. At least until they shut it down.