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Just a thought.......

Would game players accept such a taboo design if a game developer created a scenario where the main villain in a game actually stole all of your saved games (whether on your hard drive or memory card) and forced that scenario as the backdrop for your search for him or her?

Instead of fighting a villain because he or she is trying to destroy the world, it became a personal fight to obtain your saved games. If you lost in the final battle you lost all your saved games.....if you won.... you simply got it back in one piece.

I, personally, think putting saved games as collateral would enforce a new type of challenge for game players, especially, in the action adventure genre (which have turned into nothing but movies (with some interaction) rather games.

Would it be accepted with game players to risk their most cherished possession?

I would not. Based on that I have logged many hours into games over the years, Borderlands 1 for example has over three hundred hours logged into it. Had I started playing a game that took away those saves, I would be furious. Also, based on how I play long games (in bursts spread out over months), I would be really upset in that I may play this game one day, then six other games over the next few weeks before coming back. Unless ofcourse the game really grabbed my attention.

Its a clever idea, but no, bad.

It's one of those things that sound better in theory than practise.


But it's not like there have been awesome things done with saving. Steel Batallion anyone?

I was reminded of that artsy-fartsy indie game where destroying enemies would delete files from your system, but that's sort of reversed from what you're suggesting.

My first thought about that was that people would just backup their saves before playing such a game. Even though I mostly play games where the save files are just unlocks (cars, tracks, extras, etc) and high-scores (easily stored elsewhere) that wouldn't take hundreds of hours to get again, I still wouldn't risk them when I can easily circumvent the system. Not to mention the rage that would be induced if I were to fail and lose my saves solely because the game did something utterly cheap or unavoidable.

Didn't Hideo Kojima once want to make a game where the physical game disc would destroy itself if the player died, or was that an urban legend?

Interesting, but no thanks. I would hate to start a game all over again just because a single level could wipe out the save. Maybe instead expand on the save game file by adding to a game. A few games do this such as carrying a save from a game over to part 2 of a series.

Then there are games such as PS1 Metal Gear Solid when Psycho Mantis could "see" your memory card. Instead of just comments on what you played, add features to a game at a given point when the villain looks at the game saves. Take it a step further such as in "Vib Ribbon" or various "Monster Collection" games and actually add elements based on what other saves are on the memory card. Throw in a whole new random level or change the style of game play based on what save are looked at.

Ikari Warriors for the NES didn't have saves, but you could always continue by hitting "A-B-B-A", except for during boss battles. If you lost a boss battle it was game over and back to the beginning for you. I always hated that aspect of the game. Especially since the final boss was such a bastard unless you knew the special spot to stand and lob grenades without getting hit. It did add some intensity to the boss battles, but it was mostly just annoying.

That villain already exists. It's called Sony. See the tons of save copy lock games on the PS3. Either pay Sony to use their cloud like save feature with PSN Plus, or risk forever losing your saves if your hard drive crashes or there is simply a power outage while you're saving your game

And for people who say that Sony has nothing to do with this, I would ask why there is a higher percentage of games with this feature on the PS3, and why a game like Lollipop Chainsaw doesn't let you back up your saves on the PS3, but you can do it just fine on the Xbox 360

http://www.ps3trophies.org/forum/genera ... hread.html

Gamerforlife wrote:That villain already exists. It's called Sony. See the tons of save copy lock games on the PS3. Either pay Sony to use their cloud like save feature, or risk forever losing your saves if your hard drive crashes or there is simply a power outage while you're saving your game

Because this was never a problem with Memory Cards.

Jesus way to attempt a derail.

AppleQueso wrote:

Gamerforlife wrote:That villain already exists. It's called Sony. See the tons of save copy lock games on the PS3. Either pay Sony to use their cloud like save feature, or risk forever losing your saves if your hard drive crashes or there is simply a power outage while you're saving your game

Because this was never a problem with Memory Cards.

Jesus way to attempt a derail.

When was it a problem? I've back up tons of PS1 and PS2 saves using memory cards.

Whatever, don't want to derail the thread as you say.

Gamerforlife wrote:That villain already exists. It's called Sony. See the tons of save copy lock games on the PS3. Either pay Sony to use their cloud like save feature with PSN Plus, or risk forever losing your saves if your hard drive crashes or there is simply a power outage while you're saving your game

And for people who say that Sony has nothing to do with this, I would ask why there is a higher percentage of games with this feature on the PS3, and why a game like Lollipop Chainsaw doesn't let you back up your saves on the PS3, but you can do it just fine on the Xbox 360

http://www.ps3trophies.org/forum/genera ... hread.html

My guess would be that the feature exists on the PS3 and doesn't exist on the 360. And said feature existed long before PSN Plus was even a thing (look at Demon's Souls). So I wouldn't really call it Sony's fault.