BioShock 2 Disappears From All Digital Marketplaces - Update

[waj9876]

So they didn't remove the game from everyone's gaming library? Because I thought that was what had happened at first.

Because they can do that, whenever they feel like.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

I don't get why this music license expiration thing happens with games but never movies. You never hear about a movie going out of print for good or having to have one of its songs swapped out for a different one just because the studio's music license ran out. With TV shows, at least, there's an explanation: It was licensed for broadcast, not publication, because DVD hadn't been invented yet and they never expected people would want to buy the entire run of a TV show instead of watch it in reruns (this is why Malcolm in the Middle is available for streaming on Amazon Prime but not DVD; it legally counts as airing reruns).

2. Campaign had almost nothing in common with the original

I'm not sure what you're on about, because if anything BioShock 2 recycled too much from the original. City run by someone who has an extremist political agenda? Check. Exact same enemy types? Check, other than the Brute Splicers replacing Nitro Splicers. Short first level where you get a free Electrobolt and need it to open a door? Check. Telekinesis and Incinerate being your next plasmids? Check. Spider Splicers introduced before you can attack them? Check. Houdini splicers introduced with one who keeps teleporting away before you can even see them? Check. Every bloody level being a fetch quest for the macguffin you need to unlock the next area? Check.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

*sits back with a smug grin and looks at his physical copy on the shelf*

 

[Steve the Pocket]

It was like 4am when I wrote that I think I meant in common quality wise. Yeah it was just a subpar recycling of the first game made by the studio who did multiplayer map packs for it.

OK, I don't know where you got your information, but 2K Marin didn't do "multiplayer map packs" for BioShock because BioShock never had multiplayer to begin with. (And the multiplayer for BioShock 2 was made by Digital Extremes, another studio entirely.)

The timeline was off too as she's supposed to be the big player in the downfall of rapture but isn't mentioned at all in the original so the story was just this retconned nonsense.

That wasn't the vibe I got. She came across more as someone who Ryan discovered was a Communist and locked up because he's the kind of paranoid asshole who wouldn't need any other reason, and who was only able to really do anything after Ryan and Fontaine had been taken down in the first game. And nobody mentioned her in the first game because she was irrelevant to everyone you encountered. Some of it is a bit hard to swallow, but it's not as blatant a retcon as, say, Portal 2 where some things openly contradict what happened in the first game and they actually changed the first game itself to make others fit.

I'll concede that the game went a bit off the rails with her motivation, though. The idea of a character who actually believes that human nature is inherently corrupt and that she could use ADAM to "fix" it is kind of fascinating to me, but then when you find out what she was planning to do with Eleanor... I'm still scratching my head as to what that has to do with anything other than give the player an excuse to Save the Girl. It's not surprising when you know that the entire game was apparently rewritten in the last few months of its development; if anything it's amazing that they got a coherent product out of it at all.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

If we are going to talk about quality, BS 1 balances atmosphere/pacing and gameplay, 2 has better gameplay so so story/pacing, 3 explosions....

 

[STENDEC1]

Gee, I'm sure all the artists who performed those tracks back in the 20s-50s are glad they're still getting paid royalties. Especially the dead ones.

Copyright Law: Protecting the rights of dead people since 1976.

I think that most works of art (such as music recordings) become public domain 70 years after the death of the performing artist. Not the original composer/songwriter, the PERFORMING ARTIST.

Mozart ain't gonna recieve any royalties off the stuff he wrote, but if the London Symphony released a CD featuring his works, that ONE PARTICULAR CD becomes public domain once all the orchestra members are dead for 70 years.

At least, I think that's what I remember from college. If someone want to clarify or correct me, please do so.

Actually, all works published in the United States post-1923 but before 1977 are protected for 95 years after their initial publication, or 120 years after creation if they weren't published, whichever comes first. Any works created after 1977 are protected for the author's lifetime plus an additional 70 years, or 95 years after publication for works with more than one author (such as your Mozart CD example).

So in other words, Glenn Miller's 1939 song "In The Mood", for instance, should enter the public domain in 2034 - which is absolutely absurd when you consider a) Miller has been dead since 1944, and b) Miller himself took the song from another artist because Copyright law at the time permitted him to do that. The main theme of "In The Mood" was taken basically wholesale from Wingy Manone's "Tar Paper Stomp".

Suffice to say, the system is broken. Copyright should not be an author's own personal welfare system for their great-grandchildren. The whole point of the law is to incentivise new works and creativity. It's kind of hard to motivate a dead person, and it's especially hard to be creative when the likes of Disney own more than 50% of modern pop-culture for centuries at a time.