When did Creative Assembly become a symbol of evil?

[Graphic]

[I looked around and wasn't entirely sure where something like this belonged, so I plopped it here.]

I'm kind of flabbergasted at some of the comments about them in the Securom thread and many other threads since Medieval 2 came out. I think many people are far too harsh on the developers. It's not as if they sit in their offices drinking martinis and smoking cigars, cackling with their evil laughs as they watch everyone suffer weak AI and bugs.

Hardly anyone believes they're doing it on purpose but I dare to say that it's not that they don't care either. I'm sure they do care about the community and the quality of their product. These guys started out as fringe developers who made a small but sweet game in 1999 with what I would imagine was a very small team. Since then they've been bought and sold by very large global publishing companies, undoubtedly have had to swell their ranks with green personnel, and the Total War series has reached a level of popularity I'm sure they never expected. I'm sure they try their absolute best.

Unless I'm mistaken, as their owners,
SEGA decides on whether or not to put Securom on titles
SEGA decides to greenlight patches or not
SEGA decides when the development process has ended and it's time to rush the game.

I have nothing but respect for Creative Assembly as they make awesome, deep and incredibly addictive games that I can play for years and years, and I do. Most of the stuff that people bash them for is out of their control. They deserve a measure of criticism like everyone else, sure, but not as harsh as they get IMO.

[Guru]

How much did they pay for posting this thread? Just joking... You got a point.

[icek]

Since I remember correctly they started run after another tw game from a very symbolic and critical patch 2.1 for viking invasion for witch community needed to wait whole 3 months. In mean time they anounced rtw and they explained this long wait by bein too busy working on rome.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

You can't have an official site where everyone claps each other on the back and says how great things are. CA read this and we have right as consumers to make them aware of how we feel about the patches that never really fix our games and the copy protection we can never really uninstall .

[Graphic]

@ Gaius Terentius Varro:

I never said you didn't have that right...? Can you read past the first couple sentences.

Anyway yeah, that's the standard operating procedure for most games. Patch is released, you give feedback to the devs on their site. I'm speaking on what appears to be an outright vendetta some people have taken out against CA which really isn't warranted, since most of it is out of their hands, they try, and I'm pretty sure they don't hate the consumer and want to please their fans with a nice game.

This all reminds me of the Battlefield 2 community who basically believe DICE (the devs of that series) are devil worshiping pedophiles who gain sexual pleasure from releasing bad patches, when really it's partly their own fault because every idea is presented as a DICE-bashing rant which isn't getting anyone anywhere.

However, CA definitely does have a say in it in my opinion, I don't believe SEGA just dictates them "use SecuROM or leave".

I don't think they do have a say in that in any meaningful way. Sega owns them and publishes/distributes their games. CA's job is to make the game. The packaging, the disc manufacture (Securom), etc. is not their field. It would be comparable to a movie director demanding that his studio release the DVD without copy protection or that it can never be edited to air on TV. He really has no say in that decision.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

Oh that wasn't personal at all i was addressing the topic which is a good one. However If you believe that the comunity is REALLY upset about this securom issue then you haven't seen us cheesed yet

[alpaca]

Yeah, in fact I think I always wrote SEGA on the SecuROM thread, and not CA as I am very well aware of it.

However, CA definitely does have a say in it in my opinion, I don't believe SEGA just dictates them "use SecuROM or leave".

Anyways, I'm the last to unfairly criticize people and try to keep it constructive at all times (although I don't always manage to, but I'm only human). I always held the opinion that we have to tell the devs (and publishers) what we do and don't like or otherwise they'll just take it for granted that we're content with what they're doing and in that case they won't change anything
This sometimes includes shouting a bit because otherwise it can very well happen people don't listen to you.

Good idea for a thread nonetheless, it always helps to encourage your devs a bit. Most of the time they're doing a decent job

[barvaz]

However, CA definitely does have a say in it in my opinion, I don't believe SEGA just dictates them "use SecuROM or leave".

Well, it depends or their specific contracts and agreements but it is more than likely that like many other publishers, SEGA controls the distribution, installation, packaging, manual , EULA and copy protection, among other things.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the actual software packaging, wrapping the game code with the installation software and integrating the 3rd party software like SecuROM is done by SEGA developers and not CA's themselves.

In any case, the final word is probably SEGA's and I don't imagine many game developers dropping their publisher for issues that not many consider fundamental (unlike distputes about money, artistic freedom or game design, for example) since copy protection at some level is considered de facto standard in the industry.


- barvaz

[alpaca]

Well, it depends or their specific contracts and agreements but it is more than likely that like many other publishers, SEGA controls the distribution, installation, packaging, manual , EULA and copy protection, among other things.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the actual software packaging, wrapping the game code with the installation software and integrating the 3rd party software like SecuROM is done by SEGA developers and not CA's themselves.

In any case, the final word is probably SEGA's and I don't imagine many game developers dropping their publisher for issues that not many consider fundamental (unlike distputes about money, artistic freedom or game design, for example) since copy protection at some level is considered de facto standard in the industry.


- barvaz

Ok I guess I have to back you here then. Had a chat with both Caliban and Palamedes today and neither of the two even knew that SecuROM was used in Kingdoms...

Anyways I'm a bit stumped at the total lack of comment from SEGA and CA on the issue. Maybe we should take it to the .com

[crpcarrot]

sorry i didnt read the whole thread but just wanted to point out that even on the securom thread noone is blaming CA i think its a problem with the industry as whole and and most probably due with accountants and bigwigs who have no idea how games are used.

edit: ok read whole thread now, aout the ranting it tends to get a bit childish when games are just released and the forum is full of teenages who seem to disapear in a month or 2. but everytime a new game/exp is announced/released it happens again.

although game developers have a right to protect ther revenue stream from piracy putting unecessary software into legitimate copies of the game is not going to help specially if the software has the POTENTIAL to cause problems for the end user in other ways. hopefully protection software will get standardised and less problematic in the future but it still makes no sense restricting paid cutomers use of software. as long as i cant copy the disk i should be ale to install it on all my computers. and if am not using it i should be ble to give to my mates or whoever.

[Daveybaby]

I agree crpcarrot - most of the discussion on there is about DRM and copy protection in general. Anyone on there who is blaming CA frankly doesnt have a clue what theyre talking about.

[Didz]

Well as far as I am concerned the SecuRom issue lies firmly on SEGA's doorstep. They own CA and they decided to jump on the SecuRom bandwagon.

However, its worth noting that were any legal action to arise from this issue then as your contract was with the retailer who sold you the game, neither CA, nor SEGA will be involved in the case, unless the retailer decides to join them as third parties. This caused a lot of confusion in the Blizzcon case where customers thought they could actually sue Blizzard, and wasted a lot of time and effort trying to do so. In my case any legal action will have to be taken against Play.com for selling me software without warning me that it contained invasive software.

[SpencerH]

As best as I can tell, it was sometime after the Viking Invasion XP.

[Shahed]

[I looked around and wasn't entirely sure where something like this belonged, so I plopped it here.]

I'm kind of flabbergasted at some of the comments about them in the Securom thread and many other threads since Medieval 2 came out. I think many people are far too harsh on the developers. It's not as if they sit in their offices drinking martinis and smoking cigars, cackling with their evil laughs as they watch everyone suffer weak AI and bugs.

Hardly anyone believes they're doing it on purpose but I dare to say that it's not that they don't care either. I'm sure they do care about the community and the quality of their product. These guys started out as fringe developers who made a small but sweet game in 1999 with what I would imagine was a very small team. Since then they've been bought and sold by very large global publishing companies, undoubtedly have had to swell their ranks with green personnel, and the Total War series has reached a level of popularity I'm sure they never expected. I'm sure they try their absolute best.

Unless I'm mistaken, as their owners,
SEGA decides on whether or not to put Securom on titles
SEGA decides to greenlight patches or not
SEGA decides when the development process has ended and it's time to rush the game.

I have nothing but respect for Creative Assembly as they make awesome, deep and incredibly addictive games that I can play for years and years, and I do. Most of the stuff that people bash them for is out of their control. They deserve a measure of criticism like everyone else, sure, but not as harsh as they get IMO.

Good post.

To be frank, history has pretty much repeated itself since MTW in three consecutive titles. Everything has it's limits, specially where my money, and most importantly my time is involved.