Xbox One

[Pulsar_t]

I sympathise with TheSonicRetard and I agree that this is downright awful. There's no guarantee that anti-DRM measures could work on the Xbone and therefore your games are lost as soon as MS pulls the switch. The law doesn't compel them either since corporations are more human than actual people and they own everything they sell to you. The only way to stand up against corporate greed is to boycott. But unfortunately there are more critical things that humans as a civilisation continue to ignore so gaming doesn't hold much hope really.

[Krejlooc]

Doesn't bother me much. I've played PC games before. So what's new? Now will the Xbox One have exclusive games I am interested in? Not sure yet.

That whole "mandatory 24-hour re-authentication across the entire library" bit is what's new.

[ZenErik]

Doesn't bother me much. I've played PC games before. So what's new? Now will the Xbox One have exclusive games I am interested in? Not sure yet.

That whole "mandatory 24-hour re-authentication across the entire library" bit is what's new.

Not going to lose sleep over it. If I get an Xbox One it would always be connected anyway. Say Microsoft's servers go down for a while? Well, that sucks, but I have a bunch of other games on other consoles to play. No real worries there.

Things really aren't that bad. Certainly not losing sleep over Xbox One restrictions. It'll be interesting to see how this all works out at launch.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

I'll never defend DRM as being a great thing. However, as somebody who games mainly on PC. The realities of this situation aren't nearly as gloom as some of you want to make it out to be. There has been one time, in the last year, I haven't been able to play some game due to internet based DRM. This isn't 2006. They can handle these sorts of things. Microsoft needs to separate their authentication server from their online social aspects in the way Valve does with Steam. Doing that well seems to have served them well, and it's never posed a problem for me or millions of other Steam users.

It's also worth noting that, while there is the legitimate concern that the Xbox One may be completely irrelevant 20-30 years down the line and retro-gaming pretty well impossible on it, there is also the possibility of a move towards a more service-based style system. Both the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 use systems very close in nearly every way to standard PC hardware. X86 CPUs and no crazy custom graphics. Much in the way I can play a PC game from 1998 with relative ease on my PC now, they've made the pathway to do that on their platform much easier by going with the particular hardware they have. So that's something to consider as well. Seeing as their trying to go for a more, all-in-one cable TV-center-box-thing, I would say that there's a good chance of that happening.

This all said, there are rumblings on NeoGaf that Microsoft was completely not prepared for Sony's PS4 announcement and have been scrambling to get the Xbox One together since. So this may all be a hilarious crash and burn on Microsoft's part. Apparently there may be problems with the esram on the Xbox One too; so looking at very few 1080p framebuffers on launch games. They may be looking at only a modest boost in power over the WiiU even.

As loud as people on the internet are screaming about it right now, I still bet it will sell relatively well.

[flex wood]

I feel stupider for having read this entire thread now.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Where'd opwoc's post about cocaine go?

[Krejlooc]

I haven't told a single person in this thread how to feel about the xbox one and this DRM.

doomsday scenario

worst fears

Required, persistent, mandatory re-authentication checks are disgusting and a terrible thing.

I'm simply correcting your hand-waving of the issue, because, despite your dismissal, this is a big deal. These problems are real. And they do affect everybody.

Those all seem like suggestions about how we should feel. You didn't start the sentences with "you should feel/think" but that's your argument.

Your tone about my profession is insulting. This isn't the only alternative.

I'm not trying to insult you, just trying to figure out how their decisions affect you and your livelihood if you aren't actually working on an Xbox One game or haven't been working on similar platforms previously.

My decision to not endorse these sorts of DRM practices is purely ideological at this point, simply because I have alternatives (steam, android, iOS, WiiWare, etc).

Actually, first, let's step back and reexamine my position, because I'm not sure if people even understand what I am upset about --

Limiting used game sales for financial reasons? I don't mind that, actually. I can see the argument both ways about games as property, and games as a license. Considering I've embraced a model where licenses are infinite and sales are not required for compensation, used games sales weigh little on my personal financial situation. I sympathize with fellow gamers, because I was a gamer for decades before I made development my profession, but I don't think, financially, it's that gross. Developers should be compensated. Per every single transaction of a game? Perhaps not, but I do believe that content producers should, one way or another, feel compensated for their creation.

Limiting used game sales as a collector? I oppose that vehemently, simply because there will come a time when sales of these games will no longer be viable, at which point these games will vanish from the market. I have been buying games for 30 years. Yesterday, I bought a 2-decade old PC Engine game that I have had my eye on for several years. Why? Because I wanted it. The threat that DRM could one day prevent my acquisition of a game I want repulses me. I think it's moving backwards - time shifting is the dominant form of media consumption for the 30-and-under crowd. All the trends are "consume your media when you want to, how you want to." This is going against market trends. It's becoming "buy this game when we sell it, or never." This has, of course, ramifications on free-market economics, as well, but considering not everybody is from a free-market economy, I won't begin to assume that such a market is inherently noble or correct. It's a personal preference, but not a universal standard.

What REALLY kills my desire is the required re-authentication. The reasons this fills me with dread is three fold:

A) one day, the authentication servers will be shut down. This is an inevitability. That means that, one day, the games you own will not work anymore. Again, this goes against every 30-and-under media consumption trend. "Buy our game when we sell it, and for as long as we tell you to."

B) Forced outages. I can't help but roll my eyes whenever someone says that since THEY are always online, it's not a problem. Aside from finding that sentiment to be incredibly selfish, I also assumes that the problem can only be on their end. It's not. I have already listed numerous examples in this thread where a user, in the past, has met the internet access requirement, only to be blocked from playing their game because the content provider isn't fulfilling their part of the promise. And that's all it is, really - a promise. We're at the discretion and mercy of these content providers. Again, they decide when we play our games, one way or another.

People may bring up steam and say "oh but steam requires authentication, you support PC gaming, why not xbone gaming?" And that's just glossing over the very important details, primarily that 1) valve has promised for 10 years at this point that, should their authentication servers ever face a shut down, they will release a local authentication tool so that end-users may continue to use their products in perpetuity, even reaffirming this stance a few months ago:



2) That the "open garden" nature of PC gaming means that, even if such a tool never exists, cracks do and I am not at the mercy of a content provider to grant me access to my games

3) that steam allows one to back up their games locally and permanently, so that they will never require a redownload if necessary

4) that steam requires a ONE-TIME authentication, not a constant authentication. When I got out of college, my internet availability was spotty. I remember times where I would go 3 or so months without internet because I simply couldn't afford it. During those down times, to save money, I'd often turn to my backlog of games to pass the time. Under microsoft's DRM, my scenario ends with long stretches of boredom. Now, as a more established adult, it's less of a concern for me as an individual, but I still sympathize with those who aren't lucky enough to be like I am right now. Being unsympathetic to anybody who isn't as privileged as yourself leads to situations where public watchdogs actually decree that poor people don't deserve entertainment, which is pretty disgusting.

Finally, C) I don't like needlessly relinquishing control to external agencies. Perhaps it's my upbringing, perhaps it's my cynicism at big business, perhaps it's the culmination of a lifetime of experiences where-in large institutions have leveraged such control in unflattering ways, but I flat out don't trust anybody but myself. The more a company asks me to trust that they'll do the right thing in exchange for personal liberties, the less I'm likely to want to trust them. Especially the companies we are discussing in particular, as they have already demonstrated to me in several ways that they aren't worthy of such trust. This goes as both a consumer and a developer. I don't want to be beholden to microsoft for people to enjoy my product. My revenue model is one that works in a way such that, the more people who get my game period, regardless of what they pay (even though I don't charge), the more money I make. I don't care why or how they play my game, but if they do so, I get paid. That goes forward too - pirating my software could lead to players to discover my development house and an increase in popularity. This isn't some unfounded theory, either. There is quantifiable data that piracy can lead to increased exposure. As a consumer, I can give examples of developers that I have discovered through secondhand purchases - digital sumo is a great example, because they used to be gremlin graphics. I buy their stuff today, largely because it's in my eye, primarily because I started going back and buying all the lotus turbo challenge games and realized they were really awesome.

Now that, hopefully, people understand why I disapprove of these measures, let me explain precisely why I am so upset they exist, even on a platform I am choosing to ignore. You actually understand this principle because you've brought it up yourself - markets change. Right now, these changes aren't necessary, but if they catch on, suddenly the model I've embraced is put at risk of becoming obsolete. It's not that my attitude is "stop liking what I don't like," but rather it's that mass adoption forces your hand. If people rush out blindly and buy this stuff en mass, there could potentially come a day when this is the dominant form of distribution. Much like you already pointed out, there could come a day when I could be forced to adapt to this model, against my will. And for what? I don't see any benefits of this model. This is a model that funnels money and power into the pockets of a group that already excludes me.

Because this post is already enormous, I won't go into the details of the "walled garden philosophy" vs the "open garden philosophy." It affects consumers and developers greatly, and if you want to read about the dangers of the walled garden, you can look up a number of great speeches on the subject from people like Palmer Luckey, Gabe Newell, virtually anything that came out of Reddit during the Sopa/Pipa debate, the copyleft movement website, gamasutra, or virtually any university course that actually centers on the economy of software development. What microsoft is implementing is an enormous step towards a walled garden in our living rooms, and I just don't like it.

EDIT: Arg, a point I also wanted to include but forgot to - with regard to PC gaming and DRM - those few games which actually have practiced persistent online DRM, like assassins creed 2 - I successfully boycotted.

And, before someone brings up a game like WoW or whatever - there is a difference between persistent online authentication and a massively multiplayer world. I don't need a persistent online connection to play a single player game. Obviously, the nature of WoW makes it so that I need a connection because of the very model of gameplay it dictates. And, to prove I'm not a hypocrite, I don't really play these sorts of games, for a lot of the same reasons I listed above. I like controlling what I own, the fear that someone else can turn off my game is enough to drive me away.

[Pulsar_t]

It's also worth noting that, while there is the legitimate concern that the Xbox One may be completely irrelevant 20-30 years down the line and retro-gaming pretty well impossible on it,

That's a pretty optimistic number. Nobody has a crystal ball; MSFT might just tumble in the next five years as their products might just become irrelevant and in order to stay afloat they flip the OFF switch on older Xbone platforms. Never say never!

[Krejlooc]

I haven't told a single person in this thread how to feel about the xbox one and this DRM.

doomsday scenario

worst fears

Required, persistent, mandatory re-authentication checks are disgusting and a terrible thing.

I'm simply correcting your hand-waving of the issue, because, despite your dismissal, this is a big deal. These problems are real. And they do affect everybody.

Those all seem like suggestions about how we should feel. You didn't start the sentences with "you should feel/think" but that's your argument..

None of those are suggestions about how you should feel, and you are only interpreting them as such because you disagree with the sentiment.

"Don't support the Xbox One."

"You're not allowed to like these games because they implement this DRM"

"You have to hate these practices"

Those are examples of dictating how you should feel. Pointing out that policy affects someone, even if they don't see it, isn't telling them how to behave or act.

You've been pretty keen on telling ME how to act ("chill out," "It's no big deal," "you should adapt") so perhaps you're projecting? One can argue a stance - even with negative connotation - without preaching thought control. I would hope that my persuasive, and factually sound, arguments would sway someone, but I would never presume to tell them how they NEED to feel.

[3703]

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