Mini-rant: purchase and license aren't the same thing!

I like to think I'm not an overly avaricious sort... but I do have certain minimal expectations.  Once I've "bought" something, I expect it to be "mine", meaning that I can put it to personal use however I see fit, for as long as I like.  Even when it comes to software, that should be the default... for example, I even have my original 3.5" discs with Advanced Civilization on them (and a USB floppy drive!) on the off chance I decide I want to jump through the hoops necessary to get it to run on a modern machine.  However, when it comes to purely online, digital "purchases", that's not necessarily the case... especially when the store backing whatever licensing restrictions regime goes away, the "buyer" often gets left holding the bag.  In that extreme case, I can at least begrudgingly accept it... well, as far as I can accept the concept of DRM to begin with, I can accept the potential longevity of the provider as part of the purchase decision.  For an example of how this can be done right, one only needs to look at Steam... you buy things from them, you can install those things on whatever machine you're on, including multiple different types of computers, for no additional price.  By that means, among others (such as their routine sales), they work towards the long-term survival of their storefront... I think they even said they'd let people take their purchases with them should Steam ever shut down, but that seems like a remote possibility these days, and I'm not about to waste the time to search the 'net for any such statement so many years later.

Compare and contrast, then, to one of my no-buy-list companies, Sony.  They sold a game, Gran Turismo 5, which they're shutting down the multiplayer servers for in a few months... which is in and of itself unfortunate, but not something worthy of being taken to task over.  However, they also sold DLC for that game... and apparently, something to do with some of it must have some tie to those multiplayer servers, because they're removing the DLC from their storefront (fair enough, if they don't want to sell to anybody else), and announcing that people who bought some of that DLC won't be able to re-download it for themselves thereafter (what what WHAT?!?).  Now, this doesn't affect me directly, since I haven't bought any Sony anything in forever, but I can put my feet in one of their players' shoes... last I knew, all their store checkouts were labeled "purchase", never mind the weasel-words of any click-through license agreement, but, due to their concerns about piracy, rather than allow for a transferable backup of some sort, they compensated by allowing indefinite re-downloads of your purchases.  Apparently, that is, until it's no longer convenient for them to do so, at which point they'll just stop.

So, like I said, it's not directly my problem, since I'm not a Sony customer any longer... so why, you might ask, do I care?  Frankly, because it's not the first time I've seen companies try to get squishy with the term "purchase" when it didn't suit their needs... maybe it's not the best example, but Amazon's issue with 1984 a few years back springs to mind first.  Simply put, if you're running a storefront of any sort, digital or otherwise, and you use the terms "buy", "get", or "purchase" in your checkout process, those imply a transfer of ownership... if you mean "license" or something else short of a purchase, say so.  It'll be less hassle for all involved, for all you might lose some sales... oops, I mean "licensing revenue".

7 Grand Steps

Not going to take a lot of time here, but I figured it would be a good thing to let people know and/or warn them about a little game called 7 Grand Steps (it's got a longer full name, but I'll worry about that if the makers ever come out with more games in the series).  Why do I say warn?  I hopped into it about 6pm last night, and finally dragged myself away from it about 1am, and I still hopped back on for a couple of hours this morning... it's not for everyone (as the Metacritic reviews will attest to), but, if you've got the right buttons to press, it'll press them non-stop.

As far as what it is... it's a computer game that plays like a combination of a boardgame, pachinko machine, and boardwalk fortune-telling machine, for lack of a better way to describe it.  The goal, starting with a lone laborer in copper-age... Egypt?  Mesopotamia?  Somewhere in that general region... anyways, start and grow a family, track them over multiple generations, work their way up the caste ladder, and try to survive whatever "challenge" brings the age to an end.  So far, I got my family up through the ranks to the ruling class in the copper age, where an additional layer of play similar to the old "Hammurabi" game from Apple II days is added on, met the copper age challenge head-on, tried to proclaim my current family head as sole king, got told to retire or be exiled... but that was good enough to have my family stick in the nobility for the start of the bronze age.  Tried working our way back up to leadership in the new order, but playing general is a bit more tricky than playing agriculture minister... so we got punted back down to the lesser nobility again...  oh, and, throughout the game play, you get these little vignettes detailing turning points in the lives of your family members, which often have an impact on the game itself.

Past that, I'm not going to say much... it's got way more moving parts than the mechanical-looking interface lets on at first glance, and, for me at least, part of the fun was finding out how everything works.  Yes, there are instructions, but they're really not necessary, if you pay attention to how the game behaves.  Besides, if you follow that link at the top of the post, there's a free demo on their site... all it can eat is your time, and, if the $15 asking price for the full game is a bit steep for you, I wouldn't be surprised if it cropped up on another Steam sale one of these days.