Apparently the president of Lucasarts, Darrel Rodriguez is not the president of Lucasarts anymore.  No word on why, but this is potentially very sad.

Why?

because Darrel Rodriguez is the man responsible for making possible all of the recent, (and awesome) Monkey Island games.  The special edition of the Secret of Monkey Island, Tales of Monkey Island, and soon the special edition of Monkey Island 2: Lechuck’s Revenge.  none of these would have happened, and that’s a very sad thought. 

The previous president, Jim Ward, was the dunderhead responsible for axing Sam and Max: Freelance Police, among other things. Now, obviously, Rodriguez’s departure is no guarantee that Lucasarts will cease to do the things that in the past year or so have gained their respect in my eyes, but  I can’t help but be super nervous that the focus is going to return to Star Wars, and nothing but Star Wars.

Ubisoft recently announced that most (all?) of its upcoming games for the PC will require you to be connected to the internet at all times.  All saved games will be stored on their servers, with the effect that, if you are away the internet, for any reason, you don’t get to play whatever Ubi title you’ve been pouring hours in to.   You get to start over.    (actually, the article isn’t entirely clear on whether or not you’ll actually be able to play the game at all without internet, but seems to lean towards just not  being able to access your saves.) Obviously, the internet is in an uproar about this.    I’m kind of upset about it myself, actually.

I’m not sure I’ll be getting Splinter Cell Conviction for the PC, (because Double Agent was the shittiest port I’ve ever had the displeasure to play, but also because splitscreen co-op is awesome,) but if I do, I sure as hell want to be able to play it even when we lose internet down here, which is a frequent enough occurrence to be worth mentioning.

Tycho from Penny Arcade wrote a pretty awesome bit on how stupid people sound when they threaten to pirate a game due to the publisher or developer doing something they don’t like, and he’s right. But the thing is,  if I buy anything, I get to choose how I use it.  If I do end up getting it for the PC, then the first thing I do will be to find a crack that circumvents this ridiculous DRM.

These kind of DRM arguments shouldn’t be happening anymore.  We as a people should be past this.  Steam has proven that the DRM they have in place (That is, you have to run Steam while playing the game,) is effective enough to make them RIDICULOUSLY FUCKING RICH, and people still aren’t getting the hint.

Fail.