Does steam need quality control?
They can name their game whatever they want. There's no need to censor game names. If game is good, it's good no mater how lame the name is.
Comment has been collapsed.
You can't name your game as you want. Try make game and call it "starcraft" and see what will happen.
Name your game "St4rcr4f7" and it will be ok?
Comment has been collapsed.
"!4RC4N01D!" - instead of "arkanoid"
That's what I'm pointing out.
Comment has been collapsed.
According to Wikipedia Arkanoid is a Breakout-clone from from 1986 but to be honest I wasn't familiar with the franchise neither. (never had a SNES) So probably a lot of people won't get from the OP you're talking about the copyright issue. I was focusing on the leet-speak thing as well ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
but to be honest I wasn't familiar with the franchise
In fairness, if someone is even a passably involved breakout fan, they're pretty likely to at least be familiar with the name. Outside of the original Breakout, Arkanoid is by far the most notable game within the genre's history, being so well-known that you'll even see it sometimes used in place of "Breakout" or "Brick-Breaker" or similar labels when referring to Breakout games- eg, "I was playing an Arkanoid game."
Arkanoid is notable for introducing concepts such as power-ups, enemies, blocks which are indestructible or require multiple hits, levels with distinct layouts, and bosses to Breakout games. Such concepts quickly became mainstays of the genre, having to some degree featured in nearly all games within the genre since that point- ergo, one can consider most any Breakout clone to also be an Arkanoid clone. While "Breakout" feels more intuitive to say, Arkanoid is the game we actually credit with most of the concepts of the genre that we have today.
Copyright law gets a bit more open when game names are used with such familiarity by the populace on the whole, but that's generally more an allowance to use "Arkanoid clone" in your description, rather than an allowance to use "Arkanoid" within your game's name itself. Either way, it wouldn't be the first such copyright claim over Breakout games that we'd have seen in the modern gaming era. Of course, those claims were by Atari, not by Arkanoid's owner Taito (currently owned by SquareEnix), and technically you're golden to use a name so long as someone doesn't file against you. So unless Sqenix takes note, it may be less of a copyright issue and more of a copyright observation. :P
Comment has been collapsed.
I see. Yeah, the Wikipedia article mentioned it introduced several new mechanics to the concept. I remember playing a similar game when I was a kid (maybe even this one, if there was a Gameboy version) but the name didn't stick with me ;)
Edit: Yeah, I noticed several games with phrases like "an Homage to Doom" or " a "Dark Soul-ish feel" in the the description over the last few years. Heck, even NotGTAV got away with it but that might have had to do with all of the proceeds going to charity.
It wouldn't be great optics for Rockstar if the internet found out they filed a DMCA against a charity game :D
Comment has been collapsed.
A lot of my childhood was spent playing games of the genre. Some left more of an impression than others, but even now I do still enjoy relaxing to a good Arkanoid game. Of course, one downside is that we've seen so few advancements to the genre past the original Arkanoid- in fact, most modern breakout games still tend to be pretty straightforward imitations of early Arkanoid games, rather than copying or building off of the more interesting clones we've gotten over the years. I mean, we've got Peggle, I guess, and that's pretty great as a concept- but we're seeing surprisingly few imitators of that concept as well, and so far such imitations haven't exactly been enjoyable.
In fairness, these days Rockstar seems to rather enjoy engaging in regular bouts of bad publicity, though. :P
Comment has been collapsed.
In fairness, these days, Rockstar seems to rather enjoy regularly bouts of bad publicity, though. :P
To be honest the whole mod situation feels a bit like a Storm in the Water Glass to me. Afterall the modding community only makes up a moderate percentage of gamers as a whole. I recently saw an article that they just sold the 90th million copy and are making good money on top of that selling GTA Dollars. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm not at all familiar with the topic you're referencing; I was talking things like Rockstar's troubled DRM-practices. :P
Also, individual product sales and overall company reputation rarely have strong correlation, especially when we're referencing a game as popular as Grand Theft Auto, which'd keep being purchased in the face of any issues. Despite their best efforts, Rockstar really isn't in much danger of weakening their popularity, so long as they keep releasing their usual sort of games.
(For consideration, do keep in mind that Steam is still popular, despite everything. :P)
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm not at all familiar with the topic you're referencing
A couple of months ago lots of people were complaining about being unrightfully banned from GTA Online for supposedly using mods that only affect the single player portion of the game. There was a large spike in negative reviews but if I remember correctly they got a hold of the issue after a couple of weeks.
I played V on 360 and PS4 where the DRM is disc-based but I heard Rockstar Social Club on PC is one of the more annoying forms of DRM.
Good point about the correlation about company reputation and individual sales. Steam is, indeed, a great example :D
Comment has been collapsed.
I heard Rockstar Social Club on PC is one of the more annoying forms of DRM
Had to deal with it when I was playing Max Payne 3. Yes, it's that terrible. I'm not going to buy any game that requires rsc - even if i'm going to miss gtaV or other future praised rockstar titles.
Comment has been collapsed.
I never really looked into why RSC is so terrible on PC I just heard it so often I don't doubt it. What were the main problems you were having ? Always on requirement in combination with unreliable servers, multiple logins to start a game, limited activations ?
Anyway, I just hope they keep that crap away from consoles. Red Dead Redemption 2 this fall is probably gonna be the first game I buy directly at release since Assassins Creed III.
Comment has been collapsed.
First problem was with registering - it wasn't accepting certain e-mail adresses. I had to made different e-mail (on different site) to make it work... 3rd address was "valid".
Couple of times game crashed to desktop and I couldn't log in again until next day.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, I hate that No freemailer BS. Why does everybody have to hate on Hotmail / Outlook ? :D
Comment has been collapsed.
Then that would be better example:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/737750/PLAYERUNKN4WN_Zombie/
xD
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, that one was really hard to ignore over the last year but I've been doing my best :D
Comment has been collapsed.
Steam absolutely needs more quality control but not because of devs using numbers or punctuation marks as letters. Maybe they're just trying to target Millenials. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I take much more issue with game names like those:
Search phrase: Achievement
Comment has been collapsed.
That's different kind of disease xD But it's not that new. And that "leet" thing is something i have noticed just recently. Just wanted to see what others think.
Comment has been collapsed.
My guess is that it is an attempt to avoid copyright claims. It's a thinly veiled attempt at best.
Comment has been collapsed.
GABEN HATES HIM!
See how he dodged copyrights with one one simple trick
Comment has been collapsed.
Are you thinking of this game?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/737750/PLAYERUNKN4WN_Zombie/
Because that's what I thought of when you brought this up. I don't think I've seen it in too many other cases.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah - I have forgot about it already xD Added it to "hidden games list" couple of weeks ago.
Comment has been collapsed.
And this one:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/759700/PLAYERUNKN1WN_Friendly_Fire/
Aside from that I can't really think of enough examples to call it a trend either.
Comment has been collapsed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0GPmRCTOO8
Well, there's ALOT to learn why we have no quality control now. Check more Jimquisitions and his plays on those games.
Comment has been collapsed.
Need For Gowna , "Gowna" - "Shit" in russian language
Valve ducks ┬─┬ ノ (º _ º ノ)
Comment has been collapsed.
I guess they try to sound cool.
But for me this is a first sign that I'm not the target 😉. If I'm in a good mood I'll ignore the warning sign, otherwise if it's really good someone will recommend it to me!
Comment has been collapsed.
Steam does need a quality control, but I don't see using 'leetspeak' in game title as something that should be curated, can it be used to go around trademark of the name? it can, but it can also be used just as artistict measure to give your game unique name - and for some games such unique names work. Actual quality control would differentiate actual creative use of leetspeak (for example VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action - awesome game btw) from copyright infringement use like PLAYERUNKN4WN.
Comment has been collapsed.
Actual quality control
If valve could hire some people to check new games instead of making more algorithms that would be great xD
Comment has been collapsed.
A game's title is the least of your worries if you're concerned about quality control.
Is the game actually trying to rip-off others? Then yes, this is an issue. If not, then it doesn't really matter at all - if companies want to debate trademarks etc, I say let them. I know I really don't care as long as the game is good.
Comment has been collapsed.
I really don't care as long as the game is good
I wouldn't care either but in case of some basic assets that are badly put together to look like game - this baiting title is the most creative thing that authors did (for example look at PLAYERUNKN1WN: Friendly Fire or PLAYERUNKN4WN: Zombie).
In case of "!4RC4N01D!" it's more personal. I have spend a lot of time with actual arcanoid and this (at least to me) looks wrong.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't have much faith in the Quality of the game if they name it like that..
Comment has been collapsed.
why would people use numbers if they can prefix their games with NOT ?
NOTPLAYERSUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
NOTThe Witcher 3
www.NOTSteamgifts.com
works every time!
Comment has been collapsed.
Leet used to write game's name.
For example:
"!4RC4N01D!" - instead of "arkanoid"
Is that some shady way to dodge copyright and use name that would be prohibited in other case? Or just dev is trying to be cool and sell something that is free on many places on the internet xD or both
Comment has been collapsed.