To Game or To Protect: When PC Security Affects Gaming

Up until now, arguing Street Fighter V's development decisions have been, for the most part, easy to do. The growing pains of dealing with a new technology and figuring out how it can be of equal benefit to the consumer, developer, and publisher is certainly the act of juggling, in a metaphorical sense, so it is understandable that issues are going to arise.

When you add emerging technology and dealing with the PC..well...things get a bit crazy. The freedom that a PC gamer has with the ability to modify(or Mod as it is more notoriously known) in-game artifacts is certainly unparalleled when it comes to gaming. 

While the publishers may disagree with this practice, it by no means is the bigger issue at play unfortunately. Dealing with users who choose to cheat and create exploits that allow some to play the game without paying for it has certainly been an issue on PC for what seems like a decade. 

Developers and publishers have been unable to halt this practice and it has done far more damage to the loyal consumer then it has to the parading pirate. Case in point, the latest Street Fighter V update. The latest patch would include an anti-crack measure to deal with those individuals manipulating the game. 

I guess giving it the old college try doesn't hurt but if time and experience accounts for anything, these efforts often time become a exercise in futility. None the less, Capcom tried and it ultimately ended up blowing up in their faces. 

Issues started to arise with the game and when certain community members took a deeper look into what Capcom had added to the new update..well..saying shit hit the fan probably doesn't come close to what was discovered. 

A potential security issue was found that could ultimately give access to the worse type of PC user, a hacker. As Skull Girls co-creator,Mike Z put it, imagine a draw bridge that you left open to your castle, that was on a moat, and one of your windows were open...they basically had that type of access. 

Hours after this discovery had been made and explanations of the potential harm this could do to your PC operating system was shared on many social media and blog sites, Capcom delivered an announcement that they had a plan that would fix the issue. Unfortunately, this plan did not completely work as planned because it did not remove the particular issue in question as it required the user to physically remove it themselves. 

This "mistake" has now ballooned into a bigger issue for PC users of this title. If a game developer can be so careless as to leave such a harmful file on your PC, can you really trust them not to do it again? This is the question that I'm currently sitting with and if you are playing this game on your PC, you probably should be sitting with this question as well. 

Lucky for me, I did not do the update before this discovery was made and I'm thinking it is probably in my best interest to uninstall Street Fighter V. This is certainly a very big breach of trust and as such, Capcom is going to have to earn this trust back by leaps and bounds. And I'm not talking about a free give away as an apology here, I'm talking about their going to have to walk a fine line for the foreseeable future before I even THINK about re-installing Street Fighter V on my PC. 

I'm in no way going to reward Capcom's folly by purchasing a PS4 version of this game, which is certainly a viable option but one I should not have to make. This is certainly not where I hoped I would be with Street Fighter V going into the next year but it is the mess they made and only they can do whats best to rectify the situation. Until then, I'm forced to wait and see. 

The Struggle To Coincide

Console wars are as old as the dawn of time...just take my word for it. I can still remember the Mortal Kombat conflict. One system, which dealt with hardware constraints, versus another system that struggled to maintain its "family" appeal.

Now a days, exclusivity plays a more heavier role in battle.  Long gone are the days where you could easily distinguish the system that "did a better job".  The war still rages on but when it comes to games that share multiple platform ports, there seems to be a bit of concession brewing for gaming online.

PC has fast become the neutral ground of choice when it comes to cross-network play. If there was ever a time to play nice between warring consoles, now is definitely that time. 

Xbox has, in a way, extended the olive branch when they launched a new initiative for developers interested in having cross-network accessibility for their titles. They have gone on record saying their open to working with other consoles.

While it would seem that ball is now in the other consoles courts, I can not completely trust that Microsoft is as open to this idea as they are professing to be. The Playstation 4 is certainly in a strong position and having a large percent of exclusive fighting game titles on their system has definitely hurt Microsoft's chances of competing in the market. 

With that being said, having cross-network for fighting games would change the game drastically. One could imagine what this would have meant for street fighter x tekken's community. 

An increased player base insures the games longevity, yes, but in a time where consoles have now become the official sponsor for online and offline tournaments, there is still so much that creates a divide between companies. 

 The fighting game community could certainly use this boost. While it may be of greater benefit to the developers then to the console manufacturers, cross-network compatiblity may do more good then competing companies fail to realize. 

We as players tend to migrate where the action is. Imagine if that was no longer necessary...does not sound so bad now doesn't it?