Art and Money

This is a post I wanted to store here. I posted this at the 3DRealms forums, and just so you know they are planning on using xStream for their new game Prey. Now xStream supports online authentication, that damnable concept recently realised by the bastard product Steam. I clearly, am against this, and hence this post. Read on, and see my truth:

There are two kinds of game developers. Those who develop with a passion for their art, and those who develop with a passion for money. If you're a developer who makes your games because you want to make something beautiful, something profound, something to make people say, "OMFG, I have seen the light and it is beautiful!", then clearly you are part of the first group. The second group (e.g. EA), naturally only cares for themselves, they follow a demographic and use their calcuators and cash to create a specially crafted product that will give enough punch to get people to spend their cash on it, but not cost so much that you loose profit. The games are only a means to an end for these people, and frankly they don't give a damn if it sucks, they only care about money.

If you are in the first group, then naturally you are making games for the people. You make games to inspire them, not to suck their wallets dry at any cost like the latter group. You rise above primitive greed, creating something amazing, and you give that wonderus gift for the people to enjoy. So if you consider yourself a true artist and not a whore to the almighty dollar, then when you are making your decisions consider the people. They are the ones you make your games for. You do not make them solely for yourself unlike other elements of society. So then, limiting your games accessablity to the public is ludicrous! And any measure that would hinder their experiancing of your work as it is meant to be experianced, absolutly wrong.

Ideally, you could just release your games for free and continue your work via donations to your cause. However, that doesn't always pay the bills these days, so you have to charge something. Thi, is reasonable, because it's what you need to continue with your art, your passion. This is basically how games have worked for a long time, and we have seen some incredible games under this system.

Under this context then we can make some conclusions about online authentication. More simply, it is a method of controlling your patrons in order to extract maximum profit. But is it not better to instead embrace them with open arms? Even the enemies of the game developer, the piraters, do some small amount of good. They increase your penetration into the global conciousness. They allow you to reach people who you would otherwise never influence because of cost or availablity. Sure, there is some money lost because you didn't put a lockdown on all your patrons computers or you didn't implement the most invasive and complete piracy protection imaginable, but what's money? As long as you have enough to continue creating your amazing works, and amazing they are, then things couldn't be better! In this case, I'm quite sure 3DRealms has enough, so what need does 3DRealms have for online authentication? Absolutly none, unless of course you now bow to the pagan god called money.