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disolitude on 23 May 2013
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Zkuq said:
disolitude said:
This idea is overly dramatic and simply inaccurate.

Few things:

1. This has been the case for multiplayer games for the last 10 years. When SegaNet went down, so did most of the online MP games supported by the Dreamcast. Considering that more than 50% of gaming today is done with MP in mind, servers shutting down can indicate the end of that game as we like to play it. Even Halo 2 on XBL had a similar fate few years ago.

2. We don't know how this "online check once every 24 hours" works and what it applies to. People are still able to play single player games offline on Steam once its installed and authenticated on the internet. There is no reason to think Microsoft won't have a similar approach.

3. Even if the game is 100% dependant on servers and verification even for single player, Microsoft/Sony and anyone else implementing this DRM is looking for a major lawsuit if the game is shut down completely when the servers aren't available. At worst, if they are shutting down support for a game when it comes to server authentication, they are able to remove the limitation and allow the game to be played without authentication.

4. This type of a DRM and business model is designed for an ecosystem and long term gaming in mind. Thnk 4 generations down the road. There is no reason to think these games won't be playable on whatever x86 hardware is being used...X86 is the final frontier in computing so I doubt Microsoft and Sony will be changing platforms from here.

Essentially the only way a game library will become completely unplayable is if an ecosystem completely fails or a company goes out of business and can't support its ecosystem anymore.

1. It's always a known risk for multiplayer games and consumers accept that risk when they buy a game for its multiplayer. However, that is not the case with single-player games.

2. As far as the 24-hour check-in statement goes, it pretty much says you must connect to the internet every 24 hours to be able to play your games. What else could it mean?

3. The EULA most likely makes lawsuits extremely difficult.

4. Console gaming is facing enormous challenges right now, mostly because of smart phones and tablets. It's not at all clear that all, if any, console companies will be around say, 20 years from now, or even after this new gen. And backwards compatibility isn't that simple, either. There's a lot else to a system besides just an x86 processor, although it makes it much easier to make future consoles backwards compatible.

Most of your ponits here are well explained and I really can't say you are wrong in thinking future gaming will playout like this. There is really no way to know for sure until we cross that briddge...

In terms of the 24 hour check, Microsoft has said its one of the possible options they are looking at. Until the console is released and finalized, we can only presume the worst or best case scenario.

I for one think it would be dumb and unecessary for microsoft to request 24 hour verification if you've registered your game on a single console and only once. If you are registering a game one a friends console and then disconnecting it from the internet for offline play, while going over to your house and logging in to play the exact same game...I totally understand why they would request that you connect both consoles every 24 hours.

I think that people need to understand the challenges with digital and DRM before they start blasting Microsoft. The best case scenario here is to have Microsoft implement DRM that is going to allow you to play games on different consoles with the same ID, trade and sell used games and have single player aspects of the game work without an internet connection check-in, if you've only installed it once. This is better than any gaming DRM currently on the market by a wide margin. Compared to what Ubisoft and EA are doing on the PC, Microsoft DRM may be extremely generous.