I had been wavering on whether to buy Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360 or for Windows.
Normally, this would have been a no-brainer for me. I like playing games from the couch. But recently I reorganized my house a bit, and the feng shui of the room with the iMac is just about perfect for games. And, truth to tell, I’m a little irritated by the amount of noise the 360′s fan makes. So I was thinking it over.
The first blow came when I heard that Fallout 3 had a CD check. I’m a member of the laptop generation. I launch applications through a hyper-advanced alien technology known as “double-clicking”. The strange ritual you Earthlings have of digging through shelves looking for magical shiny tokens to insert in your machines repulses me. It is primitive, and I have made the conscious decision simply not to buy games that require me to keep a disc in the drive anymore.
Fortunately, Fallout 3 is also being delivered on Steam, a network-based service, and the Steam version would not require the CD check. So this seemed like the right solution to the problem. But in an uncharacteristic bout of responsibility, I decided to do some due diligence before clicking “Buy.”
Specifically, I decided to drop by Bethesda Softworks’ Fallout 3 tech support forum to see what sorts of issues people were reporting. As of the time of this writing, here are the number of threads (and replies) for each platform:
| Platform | Threads | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Xbox | 48 | 162 |
| PS3 | 61 | 408 |
| Windows | 601 | 3,856 |
The Windows launch of Fallout 3 is beyond bad. It is a complete disaster. Buying this game, particularly buying the disc-based version, is like buying a ticket for the Hindenburg. And midway through the trip across the Atlantic, it crashes into the Titanic. Which is being devoured by giant squid.
Much of the angst among Windows users centers around SecuROM, the third-party DRM solution Bethsoft licensed for their game. SecuROM is a fascinating product, and I would love to see the marketing pitch for it: a product whose only purpose in life is to screw up the out-of-the-box experience for customers. I’ve ranted about it before, and will try to keep my bile in check here. But I have two things to say about it.
Firstly, the most offensive part of SecuROM is that it tries to dictate what other programs I am running on my computer. This is one of the reasons the (non-casual) PC gaming market is getting smaller each year: it hypothesizes the existence of machines that dedicated to gaming and only to gaming. Game publishers, I use my computer for everything. I use it for writing, for reading, for watching movies, for making movies, and for my livelihood. You do not get to tell me what other programs I can run on my computer. In the world of software that I need to run, I promise you that no matter how good your game is, your game is my absolute last priority.
Secondly, as a software developer, I’m mortified by the process issues. You develop an application, you spend time and money putting it through QA, and then you license software from a third party that is going to affect the out of the box experience? I mean, how many kinds of retarded do you have to be to make that decision?
Listen, software developers: you get one box opening. That’s it. The five minutes the customer spends with your product after opening that box are the most important five minutes of your product’s life. If those five minutes are good, your customer is going to recommend the product to other people even if he never touches it again. If those five minutes are bad, your customer is going to tell other people that your product is shit, even if she eventually gets past the problems.
If you must put DRM on your product, roll your own. Don’t put too much effort into it — just an ineffective disk check or two. Just like SecuROM, it won’t actually stop piracy, but at least you can QA it yourself, and at least you have a prayer that it won’t make your customers hate you.
When you get past the SecuROM issues, though, Fallout 3 for Windows is still a disaster. Failures to launch, crashes, hangs, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, babies being born without brains, it’s a grim tale. It’s an endless Halloween parade of unhappy customers.
But this, of course, is the Windows platform, and the software in question is a game. Now, those of you who aren’t gamers might not understand how this works, so I’m going to take you through it step by step. In order to do that, I need to talk about World War II and Japanese fighter pilots.
There’s a Japanese war broadcast that Ruth Benedict retells in her classic anthropological work The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. It’s about the Japanese belief, often evident during the waning years of World War II, that what would carry them to victory was not strategy, or ordinance, or adequately trained soldiers, but fighting spirit:
After the air battles were over, the Japanese planes returned to their base in small formations of three or four. A Captain was in one of the first planes to return. After alighting from his plane, he stood on the ground and gazed into the sky through binoculars. As his men returned, he counted. He looked rather pale, but he was quite steady. After the last plane returned he made out a report and proceeded to Headquarters. At Headquarters he made his report to the Commanding Officer. As soon as he had finished his report, however, he suddenly dropped to the ground. The officers on the spot rushed to give assistance but alas! he was dead. On examining his body it was found that it was already cold, and he had a bullet wound in his chest, which had proved fatal. It is impossible for the body of a newly-dead person to be cold. Nevertheless the body of the dead captain was as cold as ice. The Captain must have been dead long before, and it was his spirit that made the report. Such a miraculous fact must have been achieved by the strict sense of responsibility that the dead Captain possessed.
Now, what does this have to do with bad software? Well, being unsophisticated types, when you or I install software that crashes, or hangs, or otherwise fails to work correctly, we naively blame the software, or the developers. “Perhaps their test matrix wasn’t robust enough,” we might say, “and they didn’t test hardware like the things I have. Or maybe they forgot to test the more exotic use cases, like pressing the ‘New Game’ button.” We all understand that bugs happen, we hope we don’t encounter them, but fundamentally, because we are crude and childish, we still think the bugs are somehow the fault of the people who created the product.
The PC gamer, however, has a deeper understanding. The gamer, like the Japanese during World War II, understand that all problems can be overcome through the proper amount and application of fighting spirit. My “gaming rig” can “handle” Fallout 3. I “built” my “gaming rig” by carefully reading internet forums and choosing bespoke parts. The game runs well because of my efforts. Conversely, if the game crashes on your machine, it is your fault. You have not built a correctly tuned machine. You have run incompatible software. You have chosen bad drivers. Because of your lack of fighting spirit, you are suffering the natural consequence. You don’t deserve to play the game.
This is the sort of existential nausea you encounter when you look too closely at certain classes of PC gaming. There are entire swaths of the industry that are capable of creating fine games that run on a wide variety of platforms without, subjectively, too many problems. And then there is the cutting edge, where a horde of zombie customers surround buggy games, soullessly intoning the Zombie War Chant, “Woooooorrrrkkkks foorrrrrrrrrr meeeeeeeeee.”
I’ll put this as simply as I can. If you buy Fallout for Windows, knowing the sorts of problems that other people are encountering, you are completely mad. You have Stockholm syndrome, a temporary mental disorder that causes you to sympathize with the people who are abusing you. If you’re one of the poor benighted suckers who shelled out $50 for Fallout 3 and is experiencing these problems, be a man. Take the box back to where you bought it, look the clerk in the eyes, and tell them you’re not leaving until they give you your money back, because the game doesn’t work.
The Punchline
I gave up and bought Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360. I put the disc in the drive, and it worked.
I’ve created a forum thread for those of you who would like to discuss this topic in more detail or don’t want to post a comment.
I simply don’t have a console and can’t justify getting one. I don’t even have a TV in my room.
I use my computer for work, so can justify the expense of having an expensive one (I do various forms of art that I need the computer for – installation, video, photography, etc) – so basically the only thing I’d buy for it that I wouldn’t have in it normally would be a graphics card. Which now helps me with photoshop as well.
Even if I had the spare cash for the ease of a console, I don’t have the spare space in my apartment for the tv set up. When my girlfriend and I want to watch a movie, we simply turn my computer monitor to face the bed.
That being said, every time a new high profile release is out I cringe, because I know I will probably get it, and I will probably have problems I have to trouble shoot – I will eventually enjoy it, but the first few days (or even the first few patches) are work. Sucks.
Best launch ever? Peggle.
As a side note, I did notice the ESM options when loading the game. I’m hoping this means there will be the same kind of fun development as there was for oblivion. It went from an ok game to a really really great game.
The “painful PC experience” is indeed a compelling argument and, nowadays, I find myself more and more often choosing the console option. I simply no longer have the time or the inclination to make a game work.
There is another side to it, though, which is that even “hi-def” console games don’t look as good as a PC game with the options turned up high, and some games either require a mouse or only exist on PC anyway – Total War, for example, which remains the best game series of all time. I would crawl naked across broken glass to play Total War (and, in fact, I have very rarely had any problems with any of the games in the series). So, there’s some pay-off on that side of the equation, in certain cases.
However… any game that (via stupid DRM) stops me running Visual Studio or similar is cutting off my livelihood. I use those applications to make a living. Idiots.
The sad part is I still really would like to play the game on my PC, because the 360 version is harder on my eyes. But I guess I’ll wait 6 months for a few patches, for the cracks to be well-tested, and then buy it on eBay for $8.
@Ian Aleksander Adams :
I wanted to play Final Fantasy XII when I was on vacation. (yeah, yeah, I’m a fanboy and buy into any old FF crap). The only problem is that there was no TV at my vacation spot. So I brought my laptop and a $20 USB video capture device. The USB device is tiny — maybe halfway between a USB flash drive and a small mouse. The laptop fit in my laptop bag, as did my slim PS2, my 500GB hard drive filled with movies, and the USB video capture device.
Point being… you can play console games on your PC monitor, even if you don’t have a monitor that accepts video inputs. Space should not be a problem for a game console.
I pretty much don’t buy PC games anymore. Most games are made for both PC and console, so very few game designs really take advantage of the PC platform. RTS games still do, and online social games like Warcraft. Other than that they play identically on PCs and consoles and the consoles work a lot better, so why bother with the PC?
If playing on your couch bugs you, play at your desk. Every modern LCD monitor has about seven different video inputs. One is for your PC. The second is for your game console. Plug it in and sit 18 inches from the screen and it’s just like PC gaming. Me, I’m finding the “ass in couch” user interface significantly enhances the gameplay.
@Drowlord
Yeah, I had an input device but the quality always seemed absolutely horrible. This was a couple years ago, some viewsonic thing, and it just doubled the wires under my desk and hardly got used. The usb thing sounds interesting though, I’m going to look into it. I’ve got my share of unfinished Square games myself, I really wouldn’t mind finally beating them, haha. (Including XII)
“The first blow came when I heard that Fallout 3 had a CD check. I’m a member of the laptop generation. I launch applications through a hyper-advanced alien technology known as “double-clickingâ€. The strange ritual you Earthlings have of digging through shelves looking for magical shiny tokens to insert in your machines repulses me. It is primitive, and I have made the conscious decision simply not to buy games that require me to keep a disc in the drive anymore.”
“I gave up and bought Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360. I _put the disc in the drive_, and it worked.”
For a console which probably has a hard disk and network connection, you sure like magical shiny tokens..
r.:
I figured someone might raise that issue.
I’m not comparing games on my PC just to other games, but to all of the experiences I have on the platform as a whole. Whether I like it or not, a CD check on a console is firmly part of the best practices for just about every major game out there. That’s part of the expected user experience when using the platform.
Contrariwise, the best practice on the PC platform is that requiring a physical disc is generally not required, because users universally despise such checks. 98% of the things I do with my computer, be they development, watching movies, listening to music, surfing the internet, running MS Office, or playing downloaded (or many boxed) games, do not require CD checks. So the answer to the question “Why is using a disc on Windows so burdensome?” is simply that it fucks up the user experience. Everyone else does it right, and then for some reason there is a subset of games that get it wrong. “It’s OK for the user experience for this app to suck more than for every other app because it’s a game” is not really a persuasive argument to me.
This is made worse by the fact that sometimes, I play games on laptops. I’m not alone: by 2009, Intel estimates that more laptops will be sold than desktops. Some laptops don’t have CD drives at all, or only have external ones, but more to the point requiring a CD check is essentially a statement that says “I don’t want you to play my game when travelling.” When I travel, I prioritize what I carry with me, and your game, no matter how good it is, is always going to be my very last priority. So this has the added poignancy of watching game developers take one of the very few advantages of their platform, portability, and piss it away.
What about Bethesda’s claims that the DRM with Fallout 3 is totaly benign?
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/10/02/bethesda-no-nasty-drm-fallout-3
http://bethblog.com/index.php/2008/10/30/fallout-3-uses-securom-only-for-disc-check/
If the cd in the PC is really an issue just buy the game, then google “nocd name of game”. Last few games I have played this has worked. Given how quickly cracked most games are now I see no problem in pulling down a nocd crack for a game I own. I don’t know if this is illegal (I think it depends on your country of residence) but morally I see no problem with it whatsoever.
If you do get sued I think you would have an excellent chance of a jury giving you a not guilty.
IANAL mind you….
Andrew:
Wow, and I was this close to grabbing it on release day.
As I catch up on a year’s worth of PC games, I’m finding that this DRM business permeates more and more “end user” type reviews than ones you can find on the typical game reviews site or in a magazine. Why ignore something that is clearly affecting the overall user experience? This technology isn’t going away, and from the looks of it it’s only going to get worse as the “works for me” crowd continues to gloss over what is slowly becoming a fatal flaw in the PC platform to retain its casual user base.
I really, really don’t get this. When people talk about the pain of PC gaming – people who know a lot more about computers than I do – I always get nervous, because my entire PC gaming life has been smooth sailing. I’ve been playing the bejesus out of Fallout 3 with no problems whatsoever.
Maybe I just have insanely good luck. But jeez you guys, you’re making me paranoid.
According to Besethda – the PC version is superior in EVERY WAY comapred to the console versions.
Here’s the video:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/287787.html
The game is superior in every way on the PC. Need I say more?
Fallout games are supposed to have stupid bugs at launch. It’s tradition.
DRM is one of the two reasons I left for consoles (the other being publish then patch mentality)
@Akuma: I can’t tell any difference from those videos.
@Elle: As I’ve said in other forums: Does it require a driver? Does it require admin privileges? If the answer is yes to either of those, it’s intrusive.
I’m old school.
Should not the PC be for work and porn and the console for games?
The funny thing is, my friends and I all pirated the game, and naturally, didn’t run into any issues. Especially since SecuROM was no longer an issue. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll pirate a game, not because of frugality, but because it inevitably improves the out-of-the-box experience. Just look at SPORE, and Mass Effect.
Sadly you are extremely MISINFORMED about the DRM and being required to have the CD in the drive. Perhaps you should do some oh I don’t know minor reading to learn that a) you do not need the cd b) y ou do not need to download any special software c) All you need to do is double clikc the fallout3.exe
Now considering that you go on this diatribe about how you only want to double click I would think you would of tried this but it seems that perhaps you are not what you claim to be.
Now please keep in mind that I did not read this on the internet, I did not have someone tell me, I just saw that when I put the CD in it only loaded the launcher and 10 seconds later I discovered I only needed to double click the actual game exe.
The “CD Check” is only there for the game launch menu nothing more, it is not required for game play.
As for your complaints about PC gaming, yes custom built machines require downloading of drivers, constantly updating your OS, etc but how come you are leaving out the fact that the modern day consoles require, gasp, constant OS updates? Yes the PS3, Wii, and XBox 360 all have updates that you should download and often times when playing XBox games when you launch them you get prompted to, “Download updates for the game”.
Seriously it sounds like you woke up with sand in your vag and perhaps you should just stick to console gaming as console gaming is truely for the lazy. Which based on the amount of actual work you put into learning about the true power of the cd check puts you in that category.
I’m sorry, your frothing at the mouth over a DISK CHECK is laughable. Plus the game runs fine, despite (as like every other PC game) there is a small cadre of idiots who have shitty hardware, run amok with crap programs and their crap drivers and otherwise don’t maintain their PCs that end up with trouble. And when these idiots run into trouble, here comes the Internet and hundreds of “WORST GAME EVER!!!!” threads. Many of which are posted in quadruplicate.
Ultimately, these arguments are akin to complaining your car doesn’t work anymore because you don’t change the oil, you don’t get tune-ups, you don’t do anything but put gas in the tank and expect it to go, go, go… All without acknowledging your errors in identifying the issues and properly assigning them. It’s a bad argument. Just like the hordes of XBOX idiots that wail “Fallout 3 Causes the Red Ring of Death.” For example:
Fallout 3 has an issue with the Lincoln Memorial in the post-Union quest. The bug is easily avoidable in that once you finish the quest, you just don’t to up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial to induce the crash. It is a legitimate software bug. There is a semi-random crash-on-exit bug caused by a change in Windows via a Microsoft update. This has been patched, though I don’t care and haven’t installed it. But so much of this is directly not developer related:
Video Errors: NVidia is the biggest culprit in PC Gaming crashes right now because of their screwed up drivers/defective card design in the 8000 series of cards. Seriously, I’ve got a GeForce 8800GTX and it has NEVER been stable. It benches okay so it’s not a defective chipset or cooling fan. But it’s just an unstable piece of crap, like the 8600′s too. Every game I have that’s been released in the past two years crashes about every three-to-five hours. And I’m not the only one and it is an issue that was never properly resolved. Most of us that spent six-months complaining on the NVidia forums have given up complaining and will, eventually, move on to a new ATI card or a newer NVidia card if they prove more stable than the 8000 series. (Note: ATI isn’t perfect, they had issues too. Just not as many.)
Second is on-board sound. Lots of MOBOs have really crappy on-board sound chips that even conflict with Windows. You have to shut those chips off and put in a card or go to a USB sound solution, like headphones. This is, once again, an entire PC manufacturing choices platform issue and has been understood for the last four or five years. Yet you’re not safe with just any card. The ASUS Xonar Card has a problem and you must turn off their poorly implemented GX function.
A third is a software conflict. Lots of people have Codecs on their computers to run their porno. Many of them are not stable and will crash the game. And many other games. This isn’t a Fallout problem. This is someone else’s software causing a problem. The Vodei codec is really bad. If you uninstall it, you’ll improve LOTS of games, not just Fallout. K-Lite is another one that causes huge problems with games (and other programs). You have those on your computer, well, you’ve been warned.
MOBO drivers can be hell. The ASUS gamerOSD and/or smartDOC extenders crash lots of game. They are unstable. Also, some of the ASUS BIOS set-ups are unstable. I had to upgrade my BIOS two years because it conflicted with my 8800GTX so badly even 3D “Windows 95″ games wouldn’t run more than a couple of minutes. I, literally, had an $800 video card that could only play 2D games. An upgrade of the BIOS and the problem was solved.
The fact is, most of what everyone whines about, and erroneously blames the developer, are issues the developer has no control over. Like it or not, the PC is a difficult platform. This is not to say Fallout 3 doesn’t have some bugs. It does have some of it’s own software bugs which I pointed out. But, like most games, which use a lot of the capacity of the computer, it’s being unfairly blamed for problems unrelated to actual developer execution of the game.
So, yes, the XBOX is easy. When it’s defective by design problems aren’t killing you. So is the PS3. But those platforms are limited and have already been surpassed by the PC gaming rigs.
So, if you want a truly great gaming experience, then it’s PC. But if you do, you’ve got to stop whining about the game developers and educate yourself to the issues so you can correct them.
Otherwise, you can play your low-res games on XBoxs and PS3′s on your TVs. Which is fine by me. I really don’t care. What I do care about is that the actual issues are addressed in an adult fashion in which some, at least minor, actual research to the issues is conducted so the article isn’t some silly hack-piece that blames the wrong people.
And, yes, I do agree with the Japanese. If you’re not gamer enough to deal with the PC, you don’t deserve it because you don’t have the fighting spirit. You don’t have what it takes. And failure is your reward.
Just like most good things in life.
Hm OK, so all the fuzz is about the possibility of being allowed to have the CD in the drive or not?
I just finished the European PC version of Fallout 3 and the CD was in the drive all the time. I have played MANY games over the years and in spite of a few crashes Fallout 3 remains the best game I ever played only surpassed by Civ4. So in my opinion we are talking about a game which works really well, is really fun and exciting to play and takes the otherwise great game called Oblivion to new heights.
Many reviewers share my opinions. Overall it gets fine reviews from almost any reviewer.
Am I the over optimistic European here who can’t help wondering why the outstanding qualities of this game is not discussed in this otherwise excellent blog?
I simply haven’t gotten around to writing the full review yet. It is, as they say, in the pipeline.
Nice…
@Moses
Hard Core gamers (with fighting spirit, ™) represent too small a portion of the population to fund enormous games like Fallout 3. Pretending that high end games are only for people who “deserve it” by nurturing a dedicated gaming rig is ultimately counter-productive. It will just push normal people away from high-end games. Which ultimately weakens the market for those games, and hurts high-end game makers.
peterb is ultimately correct, even though I agree with many of your points. I would rather have a polished and stable — even if dumbed-down — game of epic scope and high quality, rather than drown in an ever-increasing flood of casual games for weak-willed gamers who don’t have the ambition to nurture their computer to get their kicks.