| binary solo said: Same was probably said about Netflix. DRM is all about restrictions on freedom of ownership. If you never perceive that you own a game, just that you are subscribing to a gaming service, then DRM is a total non-issue. All streaming is is renting without the hassle of either downloading several gigabytes before you can play or having to leave the house to pick up a disc, and then leave the house again to return it. DRM tells people that after they've paid $60 for a game and they no longer have any interest in playing the game any further, the disc becomes a useless hunk of plastic. Streaming doesn't do that. |
Don't think Netflix is applicable. A movie is an hour to two hour affair that can be reliably buffered behind the scenes, as is a TV show. People don't get very comitted to movies or shows. A more apt comparison would be something of equal longevity and involvement. The only thing even remotely close, though, is books as they can take tens of hours per book but even the issue is comparing interactive vs. non-interactive medium.
Games are many-hour affairs, some can reach hundreds of hours, people like to have them available and ready to use at any time. No one wants to deal with "are the servers up?" (like Steam last night, but that's not streaming and so the games remain playable), "is my latency low?", "have the moons of Jupiter aligned for an uninteruptable few hours of gameplay?". Throw in the real issues of latency and response times, and some games become utterly unplayable. Can you imagine playing any action game (of any subgenre) with input delay? It'd drive you up a wall.
