Ocean Marketing/Paul Christoforo and Penny Arcade: Why Customer Service Matters on the "real internet."

It has been a while since I've had a bona fide gaming industry scandal to write about, but man are they interesting. I think that these sorts of stories hit the same spots in the brain that are activated when a high school girl hears the newest gossip or when a bit of drama hits guildchat in WoW. I am, of course, talking about Paul Christoforo of Ocean Marketing, a supposed SEO/Internet Marketing "Professional" who decided to be rude and condescending to a customer over a legitimate consumer complaint, and then Penny Arcade got involved... and things got weird. The entire text of the exchange can be found here, but I'll summarize as this frenzy has exploded over Reddit, Twitter and now even 4chan has gotten into the act, gleefully trying to destroy someone (and for once, it is a person who appears to really, really deserve it.

This all started with a few questions about a third-party controller, the Avenger, purchased in November, advertised as shipping in early December and a customer's questions about a shipment that was clearly going to miss a target for Christmas. These things happen, and Dave, the customer wanted an update, and noticed that new orders were eligible for a $10 off coupon and expressed his frustration that he wouldn't get the controller when he needed it, so he'd be best off canceling his order and placing a new one to save the ten bucks. This is a clear expression of a customer with a legit complaint that anyone who has been in any sort of sales knows is best handled with an apology and a $10 credit (toward a future order, if that ten dollars is really that important to you.) Instead, Paul Christoforo decided to respond in a condescending fashion, threatening to cancel the entire order of anyone who tried to save $10 stating "you can buy it at retail somewhere else." And in closing, he calls Dave "Dan."

This is where things get heated. Dave explains, using strong language (but no profanity) why this response to a customer is unacceptable, affirms that the product is so good that he intends to buy it anyway, but calls out Ocean Marketing on several failures to provide a minimal level of service. To be fair, he ends this e-mail with a bit of a snarky comment that could be construed as a personal attack. Mr. Christoforo then proves that he has not yet hit rock bottom in terms of a complete lack of business acumen or professionalism, and fires back. He starts name dropping, calling names and in general pulling the "do you know who I am, you little nobody?" routine. In this attack on both a customer and spelling/grammar, we have gems like "Son Im 38 I wwebsite as on the internet when you were a sperm in your daddys balls and before it was the internet" and "You just got told bitch ... welcome to the real internet." He closes by bragging about all the trade shows he'll be at, including PAX East.

This last bit is where thing take a turn for the surreal. The e-mail exchange is forwarded to Mike Krahulik, of Penny Arcade and co-owner of the PAX shows. Enraged, Mike steps in and calmly states that if this is how customers are treated, Ocean Marketing and Paul Christoforo will no longer be welcome at those shows. In a stunning display of ignorance, Paul responds with "I guarantee I can get a booth if I want one money buys a lot and connections go even further" and "who are you again?" The game is on. Penny Arcade is one of the most influential websites in all of video gamins, and Mike flexes a little bit to someone who clearly doesn't know who he is talking to. Paul Christoforo makes this clear when he starts throwing insults and telling someone with a LOT more pull than he has to "watch the way you talk to people" because "it's a small industry and everyone knows everyone," not appreciating the irony in his statements. He follows up with more name dropping, including the Mayor of Boston, Sean Buckley at Engadget and Scott Lowe at IGN. For a finishing touch, he insults and threatens the Penny Arcade site, saying that he'll put his "125 employees" on a smear campaign, insisting that Mike doesn't know who he is messing with.

The exchange is put up on Penny Arcade, which in his arrogance and ignorance Mr. Christoforo believes is a good thing, free publicity... and it goes viral within hours. Reddit, Kotaku, IGN and other sites all go bonkers at this little man with the mind-blowing ego and instantly he is the most hated man of the moment for many, many gamers worldwide. On Twitter, Scott Lowe takes issue with his name being dropped in support of this insufferable twit, and says so, calling him "completely unprofessional" given their past working relationship. Staying the course, Paul responds by calling Scott a "douchebag" and claiming that "You were the unprofessional one" in the same tweet, still oblivious to the concept of irony. Kevin Kelly of G4TV stands by Scott Lowe in his assessment, and the manufacturers of the Avenger controller become aware of what their "professional" marketing guy is doing to their brand online. At the moment (as of 11:30 AM, 12/27) Frank Shephard tweeted an apology to any customer treated poorly and said that there is no official statement yet, but "more to come soon."

Aside from the prurient entertainment factor of online drama, what does all this tell us about online marketing and the gaming industry? If you mess with an online institution over something petty, asking them "Do you know who I am?" soon, everyone will know who you are, and that isn't a good thing. Bad publicity is no longer the same as "good publicity," something I'm sure Mr. Christoforo will learn, much to his dismay. We also can see how careers and names can be ruined over something that could have been fixed with a ten dollar coupon. In general, as people become more connected, it is better to be decent and forthright with people, as word really does get around, and you DO have to be careful who you talk to and how. That's what we on the "real internet" call karma, bitch.

Social Networking Sites: Change, Privacy and Controversy.

In the course of an average day, I spend quite a bit of time using social media. This site, in a way, falls into that category. Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit and StumbleUpon form a part of my daily computing that is just as important as blogging, gaming or email online. Whenever there is a controversy with one or more of these sites, it is usually as a result of something changing. Facebook changes privacy options or redesigns the user interface, a site has trouble maintaining uptime, makes inappropriate use of user information, or policies are adopted that the public objects to, sometimes very vocally. In the past weeks, there have been a lot of angry social media users and a lot of controversy happening at a few of the most popular sites and services. I'd like to summarize a few of those and talk about what the issues are, and what, in my opinion, they mean (if anything.)

Google+ and Real Names:

Google has dodged the wrath of the rich and powerful by not really requiring
"real names", just the "name you are best known by in daily life."

This controversy is the oldest of the ones I want to talk about, but since it is ongoing, it remains as relevant as the others. When the new social networking site was launched, it was embraced by many of the standard early adopters. Among the tech-savvy people who got in early were many bloggers, myself included. This highlighted one of the drawbacks to Google's answer to Facebook: No pseudonyms. Many bloggers prefer to only be known by the name given their internet identity, and with Google+ giving people the ability to add people whose opinions they'd like to hear without worrying if they'd get an add back, it seemed to be a good platform for online celebrities. If someone is only known by their online identity to a large audience, a profile tied to their real name isn't much use.

The debate over online anonymity goes beyond whether I'd rather have my Google Plus account under "Docstout" or not. There are many people online who cannot express their opinions without danger to themselves and those dear to them. Political dissenters, whistleblowers, victims of abuse or harassment, or anyone with an unpopular opinion are all the sort of people silenced in the name of "People are nicer without anonymity." These people cannot protect themselves, but 50 Cent is allowed a profile under that name in a disgusting display of inequality. Google+ finds itself in the position of protecting the wrong people and things. This is likely because their strategy for integration of services across Gmail, Google + and the rest of their online presence hinges on virtual "ownership" of people's online identities, and that product isn't as valuable if you aren't who you say you are. Unless you are wealthy and/or famous, of course.

Facebook Rolls Out Changes, Affects User Privacy (Again.):

Facebook has done stuff like this so much, it is hardly news anymore.

Google isn't the only company attempting to stake a claim in the online presence of its users, and their attempts to use that information has, over the years, resulted in many privacy scandals. User's names and photos in targeted advertising, how and when you use the social network, and even where you are physically present are all related to ever-changing privacy settings. The least private settings are set as defaults, with users constantly needing to "opt out" of having personal information shared with acquaintances, strangers and large companies. The latest round of changes put a mini-newsfeed showing virtually every action your friends perform on the site, including comments on pictures or the status of people you may not even know.

The anger over these changes seemed for the most part directed at things being visually different, which isn't anything new. Missed in the outcry is a simple fact that most people don't understand about Facebook. The reason the site is able to remain free to use, well maintained and with new features constantly being added is that Facebook users aren't the customer. Facebook users are the product being sold. I find the small amounts of personal information I allow the site and its partners to use is a fair trade for what I get out of the deal, but I recognize the arrangement for what it is. Wherever possible, I limit sharing of what I don't want shared, opt out where I can, and recognize that the many people who won't go through the steps to do that make the scheme profitable, so it is unlikely to change or go in another direction.

StumbleUpon Removes Blogging and Theme Features:

Et tu, StumbleUpon?

This is the newest of the controversies in Social Media, and one likely to impact me personally, if indirectly. I was a StumbleUpon early adopter, I've clicked the Stumble button over 76,000 times, and quite a bit of my traffic to this site comes from the service. I've never really used StumbleUpon's themes or blogging features, however, and these specific services will soon no longer be offered. Profile Pages will be limited to text and an avatar image, comments will be text-only instead of allowing HTML, and overall functionality beyond sharing sites with the network will be diminished. Most of the services that put StumbleUpon in the Social Networking category at all will be severely limited or cut completely, and many people are moving on. For every person that stops using the network, it gets a tiny bit weaker.

Why would a company do that? It seems that these features require time and money to continue to support through maintenance and helpdesk issues, and there aren't enough people using them to justify an expense. The style of blogging on StumbleUpon has mostly been replaced by Tumblr, with reblogging/sharing content and posting photos with brief thoughts about them. Removing these features means less time patching the security vulnerabilities their existence creates, and more time focusing on the core concept of StumbleUpon, which is delivering sites based on what someone likes at the press of a button. I don't like the idea of a mass exodus from the network, as the content is fresher and more varied in scale with how many people participate, but I understand the reasons behind this controversy in general.

Yeah, it is pretty much like that.

What these three stories have in common is, of course, money. Things that make users upset or angry are being changed anyway because even with those who leave over the situation, there is a profit to be made in going a certain direction. Every person needs to decide for themselves where their personal line is between what they get from a free online service and what is done with that service in order to make it a profitable business. In the next few years, whichever site can best balance its need to be profitable with keeping a large base of users happy will likely be the most successful in the long run.

Netflix in the News Again... Qwikster

So, since my last article explaining the Netflix price increase debacle, people got mad. Most folks don't care if the problem was created by Big Content to do exactly this (hurt the Netflix brand,) and Netflix can't defend themselves on this point without angering huge companies who they need to have any sort of future in their industry. People see that their bill is going up, while offerings for the services they enjoy are declining in terms of selection, and they need someone to blame. The reactions to my initial article on the subject included some legitimate questions about how much the price increase would actually effect Netflix, whether many people would grouse and threaten and huff and puff... but continue to pay the higher prices, or at least those who made good on their threats would be replaced my enough new customers that it wouldn't matter. Netflix was surprised by the number of cancellations this month (revising expected subscription numbers by 1 million,) a number likely boosted by the news that their content deal with Starz! would not be renewed. So they had to do something, and they did.

Reed Hastings, on his "Taking the Blame For the Studio Bastards I Need To
Be Successful" 2011 Tour.

I'm active in a lot of different social media, so I got the apology from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings from many sources, all at once, and I was surprised by it. Not so much the apology, someone had to say something to mollify customer outrage, and throwing the true culprits under the bus isn't realistic, nor will it ever be a business-safe option. Like many others, the bit that surprised me was the sudden announcement that the streaming and DVD-by-mail businesses would be separated out completely, and the DVD option would be rebranded as "Qwikster." The reaction from the public was, at the risk of understatement, not satisfied with either the apology, the explanation, or the plan moving forward. The torches and pitchforks came right back out, and people started mocking the company, asking "what were they thinking?"

Before I give my take on what they are thinking, and despite the current prevailing opinion, why I think it is a good move in the long run, let's talk about the downside. In all fairness to the angry mob, there are a few things about this announcement that suck. Anyone interested and even willing to pay more for what they had before just had everything about these services made more complicated for them. Two websites, two bills, separate tracking of preferences for movies, reviews and ratings which, without a lot of duplication of user effort, means that the recommendations for both services are weaker. And while they currently honor announced pricing, separate companies with separate cost structures could lead those customers who just want 1 DVD and Unlimited Streaming to be paying a whole lot more for two services down the line, if either division is forced to raise prices again.

I'd given up on DVD by mail, but this move might make me reconsider.
Why? There's a clue on the right of the bowl of popcorn.

That said, the vast majority of the people yelling loudly that Netflix is making a terrible business decision frankly have no idea what they are talking about. The core fear in a business like Netflix is the idea that new technology could make you obsolete, the same way Netflix itself made the local video story redundant. Physical media for digital content is a dead-end technology. People wondered a few years back "What comes after Blu-Ray?" The answer is: nothing. Going to a store or having a box shipped to you with video, sound, games on them... the tech isn't quite dead, but it is dying. Do you want to have your main business associated with the buggy whip a few years after the average person has embraced the automobile? Netflix knows exactly what it is doing, when (and it is a question of WHEN, not IF) DVD-by-mail dies, their coroporate identity isn't tied to the sinking ship.

Before all that happens, there are other advantages to this new plan. Companies typically don't die gracefully overnight, they thrash around in the throes of obsolescence for years, and are sold off piece-by-piece. If that becomes necessary, having a separate division with no structural ties to the Netflix streaming website and databases makes the sale of the division much easier. In shorter terms, revenues from a division no longer have to support the development costs of the other unrelated business. DVD profits don't have to go to content licensing for streaming, and streaming profits don't have to worry about paying for shipping, inventory and warehousing of physical goods. In the short term, selection and service for both divisions can be improved proportionally to their level of success. This allows Netflix to focus on expanding its offerings and delivering the best content possible without fear that a sudden dip in the DVD business will affect the operating budget it desperately needs to remain relevant.

Profile picture (since changed) for the Twitter account that had the Qwikster name
long before this move was announced.

So... Qwikster. The name has already been mocked, but that doesn't mean much to a good product or service being successful (anyone remember what people said about the Nintendo Wii?) The separation also allows the by mail service to finally offer video games as part of an upgrade package similar to the Blu-Ray upgrade available now. Taking advantage of the distribution network and postage deals in place currently would make this an attractive alternative to competitor Gamefly, whose mailings are a lot slower, prices are a lot higher, and who pay more than Netflix does for postage. Personally, I'll have to carefully measure a price break and faster shipping against my current Gamefly subscription that allows me to keep games I've rented or buy used games for a fraction of even used game prices, plus $5.00 off purchase coupons issued every few months. It'll be a rough choice for me, considering through Gamefly I just bought Fallout: New Vegas for $4.00.

An amusing sidenote to the whole business is the story of Jason Castillo, the overnight Twitter celebrity who has the handle @Qwikster, and has for years, (though he rarely tweeted on it before the last few days.) The current owner of that account seems to be a foul-mouthed student and pothead who overnight went from a few followers to over 10,000 as a result of the new Netflix division wanting to purchase the handle from him. The young man was previously overwhelmed by events such as losing his "bowl" and hitting himself in the head with a wrench, so a large company suddenly wanting to do business with him seems a little beyond his capabilities. He has posted and since removed tweets about people offering to buy his name, and not being sure who to trust. Considering all the assumptions, misinformation and anger tied up in all of the stories the last few days about his namesake, I can't say as I blame him for his confusion.

Cell Phone Hackers, Nude Celebrities, and Data Security in the News.

There's been a lot in the news lately about mobile devices and e-mails hacked, and sensitive information being used for nefarious purposes. Just this morning, nude photographs of Scarlett Johansson taken on a mobile device appeared on the internet. (And no, I'm not posting them, or a link where to find them, that's not what I do here.) The whole affair got me thinking about online privacy, people being tech-savvy (or not,) and how that is changing our daily lives. There are risks and bits of conventional wisdom concerning them that plain did not exist a decade ago, and many of the safeguards people use are less effective than a cheap lock on your front door. We've got major media outlets being prosecuted for using hackers for journalism, and the FBI tracing hackers who hoard and leak pictures of famous people in intimate moments and compromising positions.

The latest target of mobile hacking, resulting in embarrassing photos made public.

The controversy erupted pretty early this morning as the photographs of Ms. Johansson were first leaked to celebrity websites and soon made their way out to larger and more popular sites such as reddit. I'm not going to climb on a high horse here. I looked immediately, and didn't even think of implications of the leaked photos for a good long time. The involvement of the FBI and someone noticing that the wallpaper in one of the pictures matched the photographs taken of one of the star's homes seemed to confirm the authenticity of the shots. Months ago, a group of hackers claimed to have infiltrated the mobile phones and e-mail accounts of a number of celebrities and claimed they had nudes that they would slowly release "when they felt like it." At the time, the reports weren't taken particularly seriously, but their claims were, at least in this case, true.

Let me start by saying that this sort of behavior is obviously an invasion of privacy, and the cautions I'll go into regarding this sort of situation are in no way meant to imply that the targets deserved their private information copied and distributed without their consent. I don't think "you should lock your doors" equates to "if you don't lock your doors, it is ethically okay to break into your home." Today's news isn't the first time pictures have been taken off of a computer or phone and distributed on the internet, as Paris Hilton, Jessica Alba, Blake Lively and Vanessa Hudgens have been targetted for this sort of activity in the past. Pictures all of those young women would rather not have been made publicly available have popped up on the internet. News of the World found itself in serious legal trouble over the hacking of murder victim Milly Dowler's cell phone and unauthorized accessing of her voicemails.

This is not a secure device. Smartphones are like flimsy doors with toy locks to hackers.

What does all this tell us? Something the tech savvy could have told anyone who cared to ask years ago. Email, digital storage, cell phones connected to a network... none of these things are secure. The best solutions we've come up with for securing our privacy online typically prove more effective in keeping us out of our own accounts when we forget a password, than they are at keeping out someone who wants into our data badly enough, as illustrated by this comic at XKCD. It is reasonable, given the near total failure of data security measures against those determined to beat them, that the only way to secure personal data up to and including nude pictures is to make sure that files containing them are not stored digitally at all. Any attractive woman taking racy pictures using a digital camera or cell phone must assume those pictures will get out, as more than one schoolteacher can attest to.

If password protection isn't effective in securing our privacy, then what is? For the people who aren't tech-geeks, awareness that these things aren't foolproof helps. Treat your devices with digital storage with the same care that you give physical property. If you leave packaging for expensive new electronics at the side of the road for garbage pickup, don't secure doors and leave home for an extended period of time, the risk of a break-in is much greater. Even if you take precautions, if someone wants into your home badly enough, they will likely be able to get in. Awareness that pictures, e-mail accounts and the like are no different should help theaverage person take greater care with that information, securing it against casual intrusion and copying of your data. For those with particular risk, encryption, while not 100% secure, should be used to safeguard sensitive information.

There is no way to be 100% secure with private information, unless it is not stored
or transmitted digitally at all, something that becomes harder to do as the years pass.

Items like provocative photographs of famous people on devices with as little security as a mobile phone, or sent through unencrypted email is likely to be accessed. It is the equivalent of having a very expensive stereo system in a car parked in a rough neighborhood with the windows down. It doesn't matter that the doors are locked or that potential thieves don't have your keys. For those who know how, it is a trivial matter to get at your property. If I had information that I wanted to keep secure, that could hurt or embarass me or people I care about if it got out, I'd have to treat it like my property in the real world. I don't leave things in my car, where a broken window allows a curious thief to go through my property to see if it is worth stealing. This doesn't excuse the behavior of thieves who go around smashing the windows of people who don't take precautions, but I'd rather take sensible steps to limit my risk.

Security experts are working on the essential difficulty in balancing effective methods of protection against making those methods easy to use. One of the more interesting advances is the authenticator used for securing World of Warcraft accounts. Users can order a keychain device or download a mobile application to generate a random code that must be input when trying to access an account. This increased level of security means that an account thief would need access to their target's authenticator or phone in addition to username and password, or else a much more sophisticated method of bypassing the authentication would be necessary for unauthorized access. Overnight, account theft associated with those accounts protected by an authenticator dropped to almost nil. I'd like to see how this sort of security thinking could be applied to protecting other sensitive data, even if it does mean that my curiosity regarding what a starlet looks like naked must go unsatisfied.

Deus Ex, GameStop and OnLive - Technology Wars Bleed Into Real Life.

I'd planned an entirely different article for today, but when there's a story that needs attention the way this one does, I'll bump my intended post and risk another violation of my loose guideline to try to not write about video games more than once a week. This isn't really about video games. Or at least, not just about them. There's a heavy dose of irony in the story and surrounding controversy that broke hours ago. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a new entry in a classic series of cyberpunk-themed hybrid RPG/Shooters, and is on target to be one of the best reviewed games this year. I'm not going to review it. Not because I won't play it, but because by the time I can justify the purchase and play enough of the title to give the game its due, my voice will have been drowned out by the chorus. There's another story here. Deus Ex focuses on a world where technology and pure humanity are in a war of ideals over ethics. In the real world, a GameStop memo was leaked indicating that all copies of the PC version of the game were to be opened before sale and a coupon for free online play on the new OnLive digital distribution/cloud gaming service removed before sale.

A war is on. A war over how you will purchase and play video games.

GameStop made this call because OnLive is in direct competition with their core business, and in addition to being able to play online, this marketing scheme gets consumers to install the service on their computers, and GS doesn't like that. The first shot in the war of physical retail vs online digital sales has been fired, and the irony comes in that Deus Ex was the title where GameStop drew its battle line. Opening a sealed product, removing a part of it that contains information that the corporation doesn't want people to see, and then selling it as new is unethical at best, maybe even illegal. Considering the content of the game in question and the ethics at the center of its plot, it is also sort of darkly hilarious. I don't know if the next round of this fight will be fought in court or if it will be left to a PR battle with reporting of the story and public reaction to it the ultimate arbiter of who was right, and what will be done about it.

This issue has been coming to a head for a long time now. More than one developer has said publicly that the resale of used games in a retail setting, though not illegal, is more damaging to the gaming industry than piracy. How does that work? Well, initial purchases of new titles involve everyone getting a cut of the sale from retailer, to middlemen to the publishers and development studio. A used game sale involves two parties, the consumer and the retailer. No one else sees any of that money, and this is the core of the GameStop business model. One-use codes unlocking online play, bonus features or at-launch DLC are commonplace now to fight against this practice. You want to buy a used game? Fine. There are features only included to first time-buyers that you can get... for a price. Selling the DLC that was free with a new copy of the game allows publishers and devs to get some of their cut, and brick and mortar retailers who deal in used games hate it.

...unless you mean the power to decide whether or not to use a free coupon
for a service packaged with the new game you bought.

I've got a little invested in all sides of this struggle. I'm a proponent of digital distribution (some will read this as “Steam Fanboy”,) and I trade in and purchase major studio console releases, having a GameStop Rewards membership. I understand and sympathize with all sides of this fight and how the competing business models interact is a subject that fascinates me. That said, I strongly object to GameStop's practices in this instance, as it smacks of dishonesty to loyal customers and seems underhanded as far as competitive practices go. The reasoning behind the decision also likely stems from the fact that in order to survive, GameStop has plans to enter the digital distribution market themselves. The question of whether or not a company should have to sell a product that represents competition for itself is a good one, and worth asking. Whether or not a company has the right to remove an included part of a retail package and still sell it as “new” isn't bad either, as I strongly doubt Deus Ex customers were told in advance of their purchase what they are missing.

This is also interesting because OnLive isn't just a Steam clone. If all it did was the same thing Steam, Desura, GoG and EA's Origin do, it doesn't change the context of the argument, but it might mean something a little different to gamers. OnLive is, at its heart, a service that is to console and PC games what Netflix streaming is to movies and television programs. Through PC or Mac, or a set-top box connected to a television and broadband internet connection, OnLive is a digital rental service where the software is located on the cloud of servers. Users can pay a monthly fee to access games in the cloud without needing to install them on local storage at all. For new releases (and other games not in the “play pack,” the option to rent a single title for three or five days or purchase access to unlimited play of that one game are available as well. The technical aspects of how exactly that all works is beyond the scope of this article, but it isn't hard to see how such a business model puts OnLive in opposition to GameStop.

Onlive's TV set-top setup. The service is still pretty new, and a lot of games aren't on it yet.
How it comes away from this fight may directly affect that though.

In the war in the world of Deus Ex, shadowy corporations put pressure on people to enhance themselves with cybernetics and take the drugs to make sure the implants remain stable in the body. Information is controlled, governments influenced and people killed on a massive scale to keep the profits of the corporations secure. People fight back, taking to the streets, violently at times against the manipulation of their bodies and minds by big corporations. The fight surrounding the release of the game isn't nearly as dramatic, the consequences and stakes aren't severe on anywhere near the same level, and there isn't a clear “little guy” here. We've got companies both offering things video gamers want in different ways, and their strategies are incompatible. Pressure on governments and control of the flow of information, however... well, some tactics are applicable regardless of the stakes.

The Man Behind the Mines, Markus “Notch” Persson.

There's been a lot of news lately about the creator of Minecraft, best known online by his nickname “Notch.” As a developer, he's one of the respected pillars of video game culture for being all around decent to his many fans, and with some of the studios out there, the bar isn't set particularly high with regard to customer service. (Yes, I'm talking about you, Sony, EA and Activision.) With the possible exception of Valve's Gabe Newell, I'd go so far as to say that Markus Persson is the best loved industry figure by the vast majority of geeks. With his name in the news a little bit, it seems as though right now is the perfect time to talk about why.

Seeing as how I wore a similar hat and coat throughout college,
I also approve of his fashion sense.

Notch is the founder of Swedish game studio Mojang, and his phenomenal rise to success with indie smash hit Minecraft is well known. (I've even written about it once already.) As a designer and game developer with King.com, Notch had a “day job” working on titles like Wurm Online. What he really wanted to do was to branch out on his own and create something that he could support, and even sell himself. Inspired by Infiniminer from Zach industries and the roguelike game Dwarf Fortress, the combination of procedurally generated block-mining with crafting and monsters in a roleplaying-like setting got him started on Minecraft. Soon after, he quit his full-time job to work on it, a decision that paid off. The success of millions of sales from what started as a personal design project allowed Persson to found Mojang as a company, and to hire a few employees.

As months have gone by, the company has grown, and continued to update their flagship product while working on a follow-up game, an online collectible card game with board gaming elements called Scrolls. Much of the news these last few weeks has focused on Scrolls, as a controversy around the title of the upcoming release erupted online. Bethesda Softworks, the studio behind the Elder Scrolls series of roleplaying games, has had a pretty good relationship with Notch and Mojang. They've been complimentary of each other's work, as Mojang employees are huge fans of Bethesda games and vice-versa. The positive relationship between the companies made it extremely surprising when Notch got a letter from a Swedish Attorney's office demanding that the use of the word “Scrolls” be eliminated from the title of the new game or a lawsuit would be forthcoming.

Yeah, I was just about to confuse this logo with one for Skyrim.

Cue the torches and pitchforks. It is ludicrous that anyone could confuse “Scrolls” with :The Elder Scrolls,” or that use of a single word shared between titles constitutes infringement. Bethesda has been taking a beating in the press over the legal bullying of a much smaller company run by a highly popular developer. In fairness to Bethesda, they are owned by a media conglomerate called ZeniMax that aggressively defends the copyrights associated with their companies, and some of this can be boiled down to a simple overreaction. Copyright law is murky at best, and claiming to know for certain what is legal and what is not is a great way to get into a pointless and frankly boring debate without hope of resolution. What is clear, however, that where there is a case of infringement, a company is required to defend their intellectual properties in court, or forfeit the right to do so later.

While Notch hasn't kept quiet about the situation, he isn't exactly fanning the fires of the angry mob. He's been forthright about the whole thing, saying on his blog that it is “partly lawyers being lawyers, and trademark law being the way it is.” He'd offered before the lawsuit to make assurances that every possible step to avoid confusion between the franchises would be taken, including a promise to never put any words in front of “Scrolls” in the title upon the game's release and in any possible future expansions. Today, (August 17^th) Notch further made light of the situation by proposing a “trial by combat” between Bethesda and Mojang, with Quake 3 as the battlefield. Winner take all. I somehow doubt ZeniMax media will go for it, but I appreciate the nod to Tyrion Lannister implicit in the offer.

Casterly Rock approves of this proposal.

Markus Persson also recently celebrated a moment in his personal life with his fans, as he got married on August 13^th, and announced a special offer for anyone who still hadn't yet purchased Minecraft. On the weekend of his wedding, a 2-for-1 sale was available on the game, one copy purchased for yourself, and one for “someone you wub,” according to the site. Personally engaging the fan community and attempting to provide some additional content even when personal obligations and the time sink that comes with a one man operation turning into a multinational game studio continues to endear him to geeks. Events like this have converted many users who have pirated minecraft, which has no DRM besides an onscreen acknowledgement that the user is playing with a pirated copy, and lack of access to official update servers.

Notch has been forthcoming about his views on pirating games, indicating his beliefs that major game studios are approaching the problem using ineffective and potentially harmful strategies, while making it clear that he doesn't believe piracy is OK. A member of the Swedish Pirate Party, he's come out publicly saying that “pirated games do not translate into lost sales,” a position that is at odds with most of the gaming (and other media) industries. Though the piracy numbers on Minecraft are high, value is continually added to the game, and the fanbase is engaged on a personal level so that pirates can be converted into customers. As for the pirates that refuse to pay anything, no matter how small, for content, expensive and ineffective tools like DRM won't be a part of Mojang's strategy. In general, those schemes tend to frustrate legitimate customers while doing nothing to stop piracy, and Notch knows it.

Soon to be no longer the scariest thing in Minecraft. I might recommend
Googling "Endermen" for a preview of one of the upcoming monsters in 1.08.

Finally, Mojang has also been in the news about the current release of a mobile edition of Minecraft, the upcoming “Adventure Update,” and the upcoming full release of the transition from Beta to full game at the recently announced MineCon convention in Las Vegas this November. 1.08, the next update and most likely the last content update before the full release of Minecraft, promises to add a LOT of rpg, exploration and combat-type content. A redesign of dungeons, rewards, the combat system, new monsters and NPCs with their own villages are planned for the release. The most significant major content overhaul since the “Halloween Update” that added the Nether or “Hell” dimension, many fans of the game (including me) are eagerly awaiting an official release date. I'm sure that when the time comes, I'll be loading up the game and ready for a full review.

Netflix Streaming – The Controversy and the Price Hike

From the very beginning of my period of unemployment, I've had to stretch my entertainment dollar as far as it will go. Gas prices the way they are, this also means that a lot of my entertainment (aside from the occasional movie or social engagement with friends) has to also be delivered to me, rather than having me fire up the Ford to go to it. In my wild and reckless youth, I'd have had a simple solution. I'd have pirated until my (1 TB) hard drive could take no more. As I've grown older, and hopefully wiser, I've approached what little media piracy I engage in with a personal ethical code. Something has to be: unavailable in the format I need it in when I need it for a reasonable price in order for me to pirate. I've long said that if a fair-priced and convenient legal alternative is available, I'll use it in order to support another solution to the piracy problem aside from random thuggish lawsuits. I've talked a lot about Steam, and how it reduced my game piracy to almost nothing, but for TV and movies... it has been all about Netflix.

This is what I asked for. A fairly priced, convenient alternative to piracy.

A little over a year ago, I decided that a Netflix subscription might be right for me when I was investigating the options on this PC, which is a Media Center computer with a few hardware modifications to allow for gaming. Exploring what I could do to play movies and watch TV on my new-ish computer, I first noticed Netflix streaming. I'd considered Netflix before, but I really don't watch nearly enough DVDs to make it seem worth the price. I prefer streaming digital content when I can get it. Browsing the offerings on Netflix streaming, and seeing that it was included with the “1 movie out at a time” option, made it a no-brainer. I set it up right before we moved in here, and Netflix was waiting for us before we'd unpacked a single box.

I wasn't really surprised when I got the first e-mail with a small price increase. What I'd been getting was a value that was, really, too good to be true, so I wasn't really surprised or angered by that first tiny price increase. More recently, however, I got the e-mail that so many people got stating that September 1^st, those of us used to a single DVD and unlimited streaming would have to either choose one or the other, or get hit with a 60% price hike. Like so many others, I sharpened my pitchfork and got my torch ready. So many people are regularly disappointed and mistreated in their business relationships with big companies that it feels like a real betrayal when something like this comes from a company that most of us consider “one of the good 'uns.” Before shooting my mouth off online, however, I decided to do a little research into why this happened.

Recent customer reaction to the controversy found on Reddit.

It appears that Netflix has had some troubles recently, victims of their own success. As compared to a lot of the big media multinational corporations, it is still a fairly small company. In the period of the last few years, though, the streaming option has become so popular that during peak usage hours in the US, Netflix streaming accounts for a higher percentage of all used bandwidth than any other program, product or service. Those big corporations have taken notice of the popularity of streaming video, and they aren't happy that a little upstart company has a foothold in the market and is offering it cheaper than, say, they might choose to price it. The large companies responded as they usually do, by screwing over Netflix in order to run them out of the market so that competing video streaming services can be launched. Several studio contracts with Netflix either just ran out or are about to, and the renewal of those contracts is, in many cases, either off the table entirely or at 10x the previous licensing fees.

I'm still angry, but most of my ire is now directed at the studios that are forcing this showdown to happen. Netflix is taking a beating in the scandal, with irate customers canceling at a rate polls suggest will approach 50% of the current users. Trapped between offering fewer streaming options and raising prices on their service, the company is in a bad spot. If this controversy is the beginning of the end for Netflix, their loss would be a tragedy. I've dealt with the customer service at Netflix as well as the departments at Comcast, Sony, and several other potential players in the upcoming streaming content wars. I have 100% satisfaction with all of my dealing with Netflix on customer service issues, and a terribly spotty history with the giants that want to take its place.

If you're really looking for a villain in all of this...

Personally, the question of what to do isn't a difficult one for me. I'll drop the DVD option, pay a little less on my bill and use the streaming. When content options disappear and only show up on an inferior and more expensive competing service, I won't have a single ethical problem with turning to piracy. I will not reward companies who bully smaller corporations and threaten/pursue legal action against the public with my business. When corporations behave in this manner, I'm not even seeking justification for illegal behavior, they've made it personal. Millions of customers have turned their ire toward Netflix, which after a little bit of online research, seems to be a case of misplaced aggression. Me, I feel plenty aggressive, but Netflix only gets a very little bit of that. The rest is reserved for Time/Warner, Sony, Comcast and the major TV networks.

Virtual Currencies – From WoW Gold to Bitcoin, with a stop in Second Life.

It is difficult to talk about currency in any form these days without the whole topic getting muddled and mired into politics. The economics surrounding the behavior of companies and governments and the attendant problems and crises are on everyone's minds, and they extend in particular to this blog. (After all, if not for unemployment, I'd just be the “Geek.”) However, there's one place where we don't have to worry about taxes, inflation, volatility of currency, government regulations, interest rates and the global banking community. The internet. Sure, there are a few places that you might have to pay sales tax online depending on where you live, and if you make money online you're probably taxed on that, but our day-to-day transactions online, whether they are in gold pieces in an MMORPG or credits on any number of websites... surely those are free from the standard economic worries and the politics that come with them. Or are they?

So I have to fill out form 1099-WOW and append it... can I claim my non-combat
pets as dependents?

There has been a bit in the news recently about a virtual currency that on its surface doesn't have much in common with a gold piece picked up from the purse of a dead virtual orc. Bitcoin has surfaced in reports several times in the last week with the United States Congress taking an interest in the system in light of its connection to buying and selling drugs, and a user recently reported that a hacker compromised a system he was storing bitcoins on to the tune of $500,000USD gone in a flash. The interest in the virtual currency has gotten a lot of attention, with attention comes people doing research, getting excited and participating, which increased the value of the coins in the system. Though highly volatile, each bitcoin is currently (as of June 2011) worth about twenty dollars in US currency. The upward trend attracts speculators, which drives the value up further.

So what is it and how does it work? Each bitcoin is a piece of code with encryption designed to prevent counterfeiting or duplication or other fraud, including transfer fraud. The verification of transactions using coins are distributed across the peer-to-peer network, making all transfers of coins public and verifiable, but the addresses of the people making the transactions secure and private. Without a centralized authority, currency goes from one person's hands to another without fees or regulations, and no government or bank can devalue the currency by injecting more into the system to create inflation. Libertarians, cryptology geeks, conspiracy theorists and criminals love the idea. It is like a digital version of briefcases full of cash. Governments and bankers aren't so keen on it. Individual coins are created by “mining” where the computing power to create the blocks of code in a new coin are purchased from any user running the mining program, rewarding the miner with a brand new coin after a lot of work on a powerful PC. Each coin takes exponentially longer to create than the last, so the amount of new coins entering the system is controlled and stable.

There aren't a lot of places to spend these coins for real world goods, at least not yet. There are virtual currency exchanges set up to turn regular money into bitcoins and vice-versa, and websites that allow purchases to be made using them. The anonymous and secure nature of the coins means that some are used to buy illegal goods online, such as the Silk Road marketplace that sells illegal drugs online, or for money laundering. Currency proponents insist that legitimate uses outnumber illegal uses for bitcoins, and they are no different from cash in what they can be used for or by whom. Governments, especially in the United States don't like currencies involved in untracable, untaxable transactions, and the future of the currency may well rest in its decentralized, peer-to-peer system's ability to resist governmental interference. (If the same strategy that makes it nearly impossible to stamp out piracy in P2P is effective in this, things could get interesting.)

This isn't the first time that a virtual currency has attracted the interest of powerful people who would really prefer you use the currencies they, not coincidentally, already have a lot of. The online game Second Life and its currency, the Linden Dollar gained a lot of attention from around 2004-2007 based on the idea that the currency could be traded for “real” money through a currency exchange using PayPal, and businesses could be run in-game to earn more Linden Dollars, including trading in real estate in-game and playing the currency market as a speculator. The fact that the company that ran Second Life explicitly retained ownership of all these credits and they acted as a combination central bank and clearinghouse for all exchanges and markets drew criticism concerning whether or not these Linden Dollars were currency at all. With regard to taxation, European users were charged the VAT (Value Added Tax) on certain Second Life transactions, including some dealing only in Linden Dollars.

I messed with Second Life for a while, off and on. A lot of it looks like the Sims, with a lot
more elves, catgirls, winged angels and porn. Hard to describe.

With the established value of virtual currency as something that can bring real, non-internet wealth, thinking about taxation and tracking of income is changing. Many online gamers know about the “gold farmers” who play MMORPGs to earn virtual currency for sale in online semi-legal or illegal transactions. In China, where many of these operations were run, the issues concerning running many virtual black markets up to and including theft of in game currency and property made it to real-world court systems. In 2009, China limited transactions concerning virtual currencies and how they could and could not be used to interact with “real money trading.” South Korea has ruled virtual currency the same as any other currency, and taxation on virtual goods as a policy is being floated throughout Asia.

New Class - Certified Public Accountant.

Are we inevitably heading towards a world with some sort of taxation on the transfer of digital goods and whenever gold pieces, credits, or coins change hands? Some economists say that we are, and there is no reason why we shouldn't. I wonder about the possibilities inherent in having to report gaming income, or on the flip side, being able to pay bills and buy groceries with currency I got by blowing up monsters in a fantasy world. Will I be able to write off repair costs for broken armor? Will we see prosecution for ninja looters, indictments for insider traders on the Auction House? When do the walls between the game world and the real world come down, and when does reasonable economic policy cross that line into the absurd? I expect many attorneys will make a lot of money answering these questions, and I further assert that they won't be taking their fees in gold pieces, Linden Dollars or Bitcoins.

The PSN Outage - Playstation 3 Online Facts, History, and Wild Suppositions.

When it comes to geeky news, the last few weeks have been particularly interesting. One story that has set a lot of people, particularly gamers, to chattering has been the recent and persistent outage of the Playstation Network. As a video gamer, this is the sort of story I'd usually jump on right away. I didn't because I don't own a PS3, never really gave serious consideration to buying one beyond initial week one fantasies of selling one on eBay. However, the longer the outage continues the more interesting the story becomes even to someone who would never have any desire to connect to PSN.

I like to imagine lots of smoke and the clanging sound of a wrench thrown into gears when the outage started.

Sony has done pretty well for themselves in the console gaming world, especially considering they very nearly partnered up with Nintendo and never got into the business themselves. (What a different world THAT would have been.) One area where they've found it difficult to compete, however, is in taking their consoles online. The PlayStation 2, their largest commercial success, only even had online capability fairly late in the product's lifecycle, support for online play was sparse at best, and there was no consistency between game publishers regarding fees for online gaming, matchmaking or anything of the sort. Xbox Live, by contrast, was sleek, internally consistent, easy to use and it was completely supported by Microsoft from the Xbox 360 launch. It seems they worked out the kinks in gaming online on the original Xbox, and had it down.

When the PS3 came out, it at least had the hardware built in for gaming online to be a priority. The Playstation Network launch was rocky, with multiplayer gaming still not as streamlined as audiences prefer, and many other features copied from the Xbox360 or the Wii (custom player avatars, achievements in the form of trophies, etc...) One of the few unique things about the PSN, the Home social network/virtual avatar lobby was criticized for being a solution to a problem gamers didn't know existed. You could take your Mii... err... Avatar, and customize an apartment for them, walk them out in public spaces and interact with other Avatars, but like a lot of people, I asked “What's the point?”

Soo... they are like Miis, but you can dress them up as hipster d-bags.

Now, I've declared my bias as a PC gamer, and admitted that I've never even wanted a PS3, but I have to give credit where it is due. Features have been added and improved over the years to the consoles online capabilities, and it has a few distinct advantages over the competition now. The PSN service is miles ahead of the Wii's clunky “friend code” handwave at online capability, but to be fair, faulting the Wii for being a poor online console is a little like complaining that your melon baller is a bad soup spoon (you COULD use it for that, but it isn't really what the device was made for.) And what about Xbox Live? The venerable titan of online console gaming services has a lot to offer, but there is a monthly fee to play games online. Sony's PSN has that beat cold. It is hard to compete with free.

All of the childish racism, sexism and homophobia as XBox Live with none of the monthly fees!

So, the PSN is coming into its own, the lack of a subscription fee has it moving into position to finally challenge the Xbox for dominance, and then the worst happens. On April 20, 2011, without warning, the service is suddenly shut down. At first, customers are told the outage is “for maintenance” and that the cause is “being investigated”. Sony representatives apologize to customers, thank them for their patience, and say it may be “a complete day or two” before service is restored. Boy, was that ever an understatement of a huge problem that created an industry scandal.

The outage of the PSN began to spark rumors almost immediately as to the cause, malicious hackers bringing the network down over a beef with the company's practices concerning a user who hacked his PS3 (I'll be vague, as that story is long enough to merit an article all its own someday) being the frontrunner. These rumors grew in strength when, a few days after the outage started, Sony confirmed that the downtime was the result of an “external intrusion” which affected their network and services. Fans continued to become upset as “several days” turned into “several weeks” with no projected date of return of service, and little new information from Sony itself. The worst was yet to come.

Almost certainly NOT behind the outage.

Nearly a week after the system was first shut down, Sony told its customer base that consumer data may have been accessed in the intrusion into their systems. Personal contact information, all account data including purchase history and even credit card numbers may be at risk, and Sony doesn't have any information about what, if anything, was copied or accessed. The bad press surrounding this event immediately went supernova, critics blasting Sony for the delay in communicating to their customers about the potential theft of data, and class-action lawsuits were prepared to be filed.

So what really happened, and can Sony's reputation recover? As of the time of this article being written, the PSN is still offline, though services are supposed to be restored within the next day or two. Anonymous sources from within Sony (so take this “leak” with a HUGE grain of salt, it may well be pure fiction) claim that the issue lay within a “Developer Network/Mode” in the PSN that was susceptible to hacking. The Developer Network purportedly allowed settings concerning individual accounts on PSN to be changed, including removing bans on accounts from use of pirated software, and setting up other accounts so that violating terms of service would not raise a red flag at Sony, allowing copied games to be played online without repercussions. The lack of proper network security on the internal developer network was supposedly due to the fact that most people didn't know about it, or what it could do. Time will tell if this tale is an outright fabrication or merely a plausible explanation with a few missing facts, but it is a good story, which is why I relate it here.

This event is not a good sign in this stage of the game for a console already declared "3rd Place" in this generation's console wars.

Sony is preparing to compensate subscribers for the time they lost access to the network, and continues to apologize and thank fans for their continued “extraordinary patience” as they redesign the network from within to keep events like the intrusion from ever happening again. The process has been time-intensive, and with the recent release of Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat, the timing on such a scandal could hardly have been worse for Sony's brand image. Gamers tend to be a lot more forgiving once they are happy and playing again, and compensation after the fact doesn't hurt.

I planned to start passing out “Stylish Blogger” nominations today, but this article ran a little longer than I thought it would, and I just got a new toy partway through writing, which I will probably feature tomorrow. Sound off about the PSN outage scandal in the comments.