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Bleak Future for Videogame Customers
jvm writes "A recent commentary on Curmudgeon Gamer speculates on the future of the videogame market. Among the predictions: no more rentals from video stores, no used games market, no lending games to friends, less upgradeable computers, pay-as-you-play software subscriptions, and other consumer-unfriendly changes. In all, less gaming value for your hard-earned dollar."
This isn't purely a gaming industy trend, but an overall trend in the software industry as a whole. Everything sold as retail software now comes with at least a CD key, if not an activiation system. Software publishers have always hated piracy, and always hated the idea of selling used software.
I don't see much of a difference between a play-for-play model, and the rental model... both leave you with nothing after your allotted time has expired. The Blockbusters of the world are the ones who are really shaking over the death of physical media, because they're not needed if everybody gets their rental content delivered online.
The divorce of software from physical media is a result of a shift in business models, but I don't think there's any more reason to cry over the loss of the console gaming cart than there is to cry over the death of the RIAA-backed music CD. We're just getting deeper and deeper into the information age, and if we want our high-speed networks to be any good, we've gotta have data availalbe on it...
I'm certainly happy to have an actual CD of DOOM II so I can work on Ruby-DOOM on whichever computer I'm closest to.
The Army reading list
There will always be a p2p forum for trading games and piracy and quit harassing people and providing restrictive 'features' to control what users can do... The only way companies will end this is to offer better alternatives. Something I do not see happening in the foreseeable future.
With a name like 'Curmudgeon Gamer', would you expect an upbeat article?
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
... is XBox Live, hands down. $50 a year, unlimited play, fantastic selection of games.
For those of you considering a subscription, give these three games a try - Project Gotham 2, Crimson Skies, and MechAssault.
It's a blast, I promise.
"And I also predict that in the future Valve will employ teams of jackbooted thugs to come to your door and shoot you in the face if they catch you using a CD crack..."
Okay, never mind the unthinking, chicken-little attitude of this article. Never mind the technological "predictions" that are often nothing short of ludicrous (a game that deletes the older levels as you play? What game company would do such a thing, and why?) Never mind the article's total ignorance of market forces, i.e. assuming that players will just put up with one staggering inconvenience after another and never migrate to an easier-to-use entertainment medium (isn't this why we have been hearing about the "death of the PC" for so long anyway)? This guy just needs to plain old proofread:
"Quake players didn't need to with for a no-CD hack and Half-life players didn't need to connect to a master server to play single-player games, but DooM III and Half-life 2 owners just might have to."
Apparently he's so curmudgeonly he's started speaking his own language.
Maybe I am just a naive Pollyanna, but if I saw any video game on the shelf that required a monthly subscription fee, no physical media, and gigabytes of downloading to play, I'd leave it there without a second thought. I'd like to think there are others out there who would say the same. (Note: I know there are MMORPGs out there that are already somewhat like this, but I don't play them.)
If they try hard enough, maybe they can kill off the gaming market althogether.
I change computers every few years, and I seem to be behind the curve contrasted to many of my friends. I do buy games; I would think not many until I look at the book shelves next to me and realize how much I've laid out for games. When the games start getting so invasive that I can't move them to my next PC (which would be the same as not letting me lend a game I was done with and not using to a friend), I'll be back at the store making a loud and ugly sceen until I have a refund.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Look, the games still take up, what, 1-5 Gigs? Unless people are downloading _consistently_ at some 500k, you'll still ahve to go to the store and get the game on CD. Given the state of the broadband market in the US this pay-to-play crap is like 20 years away, and by then, the games will take up a few terrabytes anyway.
it's the people who decide things like this. If sufficient people stop purchasing games that restrict their ability to play them, then it's a simple business decision for the company to make - stop over-restricting the user.
If companies adopt the attitude that consumers en-mass are stupid (usually justifiable, to be fair to the companies) they might just get burnt on this one - gamers particularly and (to be fair to the great unwashed, this time) people in general are getting more au fait with the technology. Removing the ability to share games or play with friends may just result in non-protected-in-this-way games being more popular instead.
The games market is very very cut-throat. It's similar to the post-production market (where I work) except that the games companies are far more in control than the advertising agencies (our paymasters). If one company goes down the "wrong" alley, I reckon another might just jump to go down the "right" one, especially if they're currently not the market leader...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
true , it seems unlikely now ... but 20 years from now (when high speed internet is as common as having phone service) , it'll be the norm. the article really is off track in that no real solution is presented (or even wanted ?)
"taking over the world , one lego at a time"
This is so much chicken little we are all doomed nonsense. Do you really think that the game companies are truly stupid enough to piss off their lifeblood? Granted they make some dumb calls, but I honestly do not think they are suicidaly stupid. Games a pain in the ass to own or play? Then just don't play it! They will die, and a service that meets the needs of gamers will surface. It all depends on what the gamers are willing to accept, end of story.
If the game is good enough I'll go out and buy it, and even pay for a subscription fee to access the server or whatever. But don't think for a second I'd pony up dough monthly if the game sucks. Make sure it's worth the money. And if companies are all going to move towards charging more, don't think the customer is automatically going to pay more. I'll be even more price-aware and even more picky as to whether or not the game is worth the cost. In my opinion, out of all the games released this year, I could count the number of games I'd buy / subscribe to on one hand.
Remember Id? Came out of nowhere, provided something that the heavy hitters didn't. Now they are a heavy hitter. It's not rocket science. (Ok, mabye it is in Id's case).
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
A friend once told me that the money is in "Pay per play!"
Remember video games were $0.25 per play?
Fight Spammers!
I suspect that the longer this trend takes to implement, the harder it will be for the game makers to pull it off. Why? An ever increasing back catalogue of existing games that don't have such restrictions
Take a look at all the consoles over the years, that's a huge library of games. Ok, sure, the graphics and features decrease dramatically as you travel further back... but does the entertainment value?
A current Xbox, modded, can happily run MAME. Making one console able to play litterally thousands of titles.
If the software makers push thing to the point where it's no longer worth it to buy, I suspect many people won't. Oh, some will, because they'll always want the latest and greatest. But many may well be content revisiting some of the existing titles.
I used to contantly upgrade my PC hardware to the newest stuff released because I actually benefited from it. These days I rarely do. My existing gear performs well enough that I see only a marginal benifit. Maybe gaming will be similar.
Blockwars: multiplayer and free.. and I'll get around to updating it some more soon. :)
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
I could possibly see video game rentals going away since people can make copies of those so easily. But the rest of it sounds like paranoid rantings from some kid who's too poor to afford games. So, they're scared that they won't be able to steal their games anymore. Most video game makers/publishers aren't evil, like the record industry.
"no more rentals from video stores, no used games market, no lending games to friends, less upgradeable computers, pay-as-you-play software subscriptions, and other consumer-unfriendly changes. In all, less gaming value for your hard-earned dollar".
This is ridiculous - for people who actually pay for software, they do so because they get an equivalent in _having fun_ while using the software or hardware, as the case may be.
People who "borrow" (yeah, right) games aren't _customers_ anyway, why would anyone care about them?
I own two legal copies of CS and I'll pay for the new one when it comes out, no matter what the media is. And I'm sure I'll have fun.
...nothing more. If game makers had their way, they'd insist upon all kinds of measures that would be customer unfriendly if they could get away with it. They can't. XBOX Live works since they're giving you something for your money. Yeah, you could network you games without Live, but it wouldn't be as good, and you'd have trouble from the hackers that would introduce cheats into the online play. None of this is going to happen unless they give something back to the customer in trade.
I think the listing off of our favorite aspects of gaming (soon to be gone) just indicates the demand is there. This guy may have the knowledge of gaming and trends, but forgot the basic business principle of supply and demand. Anyone ever been to a Game Stop? I guess I may be the only one buying 15 year old games you cant get anywhere else.... As far as this copy protection of the future is concerned and portioning of software out in usable blocks is just too ludricrous without taking into account for some super-villain led software development team. How would this happen, downloads? They had better get some SERIOUS bandwidth to the average customer's doos before that becomes a distant reality....
This means fewer people will buy these restrictive games, and motivated entrepreneurs will release games we do want to buy.
Only one problem with this scenario: I'm not buying, and neither will a lot of other gamers. No doubt video game companies could come out with a really great sounding version of Half Life or whatever, costing $12 a month to play. But if they try to foist subscription fees on me, my money's staying in my pocket. Dollar for dollar, video games represent probably the cheapest form of entertainment ever developed. A few years back, I spent $20 on a copy of Unreal Tournament, and that is some of the best entertainment money I've ever spent. I've doubtless played that game more than a hundred hours. Same thing with NHL '94 Hockey on the Sega Genesis; I got it used for $10 or so, and I'm still playing that game today in emulation.
No doubt, the video game industry would love for all games to switch over to subscription on-demand models. The only trouble is cheapskates like me won't ever let this happen. When I buy a game, I expect it to be a one-shot expense, and I further expect to be able to play that game ten years from now. If, for the sake of argument, the next Half-Life comes out as subscription, I'll just buy UT 2004. And if UT 2004 comes out as subscription, then I'd keep playing my original UT until Quake 4 or somebody responsive to my needs comes out with a non-subscription game.
No doubt that subscriptions will capture a growing portion of the gaming market, but it's silly to think companies will forsake the model of one-time sales. There's too much demand from gamers who wouldn't have it any other way, and nobody's going to leave that much money on the table.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
The videogame industry doesn't focus mainly on pc games, it encompasses console games as well. I can't remember any console game where I had to type in a cd key. I can't remember playing one that I didn't have the original media for. I don't remember need a no cd hack because consoles don't work the way our pc's do. Pay for Play online gaming has been tried as a business model before, and never has worked out. The closest we came in the states was Sega.Net, which tanked.
What do I know? It may change and videogame companies may start doing pay for play. But try and remember that these companies want as much of your money as possible. I know I'm willing to pay more for a box and a disc that for a download link on a subscription service.
My bet is, console games will continue to be the industry focus, and the pc ports will contain whatever hacked in protection is sexy at the time. The only places we're likely to see "innovation" in pc game protection is with games like Half life 2, where pc development is the central focus.
Mexicans eat chili.
"I, for one, welcome our new %INSERT ARTICLE SUBJECT HERE% overlords."
The great thing about a capitalist economy is that the cunsumers are nearly always going to have it pretty good, as long as a few conditions are met. Here, those requirements are met, and I don't see how a real problem could evolve. If somebody doesn't want to pay-to-play, they won't. If somebody wants to pay to rent something, rentals will continue to exist. Author of this article needs to learn something about supply and demand.
The anti-pirating schemes already in place have all but killed the gaming experience for me. Why is it I spent uncountable hours playing my older games online with friends, but anything I've bought in the last year needs to meet up on a server. You spend wasted time in a lobby watching people type in profanity and hate speech, then as your friends all try to start the game, something happens and it doesn't launch. Time's too short, I'll just won't play games with needless restrictions and I wish others wouldn't either.
But is hardly strong enough.
Yes games that allow you to play on OTHER people's servers are more restricted, because it is THEIR servers. Granted there are plenty of public Half-life servers, but they still are indexed by VALVes master server. In doing so they get people playing on their server, and VALVe is assured the people playing on these servers are using legitimate products.
If one has a problem with the 1984 style, then don't play on the servers, instead use other servers like one can use with open battle net. You can connect without any legit CD key, but you also are playing with less people; more then likely. As always a trade off.
As for Steam only downloading the parts you'll "Use in the near future" the author does NOT know what he is talking about. Steam downloads the levels as you play them, yes, aside from the core levels that come with the mod you are playing (or the original game). By core levels I mean, if you download half-life it downloads all the game content you need, but no added developer levels unless you go on a sever that has them, then it downloads them and you keep them on your hard drive.
It is for two reasons. To be gentle on VALVes bandwidth, and also if you never play any other levels/mods (like Counter strike, or Day of defeat) then there is less Hard drive space taken up on your computer.
As for the rest of the author's comments on making everything non-tangible, I doubt that will happen for a few reasons.
One of which is people like to have a product for convince they can grab and install if their system crashes.
Two people would want more for less, if they don't have that solid backup to go back to.
Example. Through steam, you either buy the game in the store or get an unlimited subscription to steam, or you pay 5 dollars a month for the same service.
I'd love to hear arguments against what I've said, so please...
Gamers just won't tolerate this model - it will probably be tried out by game makers for a while, and when it fails the game makers will drop the system. However, I think that there will be more protection for game sharing in the future.
what is going to take its' place?
More importantly, what is it going to take for the consumer to both stand up aggressively (none of this "oh, I hate the riaa --ooo! eminem has a new cd out -fap fap fap" crap) and be heard?
Given that the market is no longer consumer oriented, is it too late for any meaninful (note that clause) change to occur?
(Offspring, I believe)
To do any significant game-related downloading, you need a fast internet connection. A LOT of users (self included) are still on dial-up, simply for cost reasons. If you add the cost of a required broadband link, plus a pay-per-play or subscription model for games, people will decide it's simply not worth their hard-earned money. I know people who pay $80/mo for their cable TV & internet, but they're double-income, middle class families. Students, young workers, and other lower-income people will not - often can not - pay through the ass just to play video games.
Freedom: "I won't!"
This is not consumer unfriendly - it's about getting a better experience, and especially a social experience where you meet other people.
One of the main reasons why Counter-Strike got so popular, was that dead players could chat with each other - it simply added a social experience to the computer game.
The future is not much different from going to Disney Land - you only have the experience during the time period you paid for, a big part of the experience is being there together with other people, and you don't own anything after leaving it (except for the memory).
If Sierra's Tribes 2 game was a pay-per-month service, I'm sure it would have survived longer than it did.
-=EEF=-Dybdahl
Euro Elite Force
http://www.euroeliteforce.net/
As soon as games are unrealisticly restricted, more people will feel the need to write GPL ones.
We are seeing the groundwork already, in good GPL game engines, and the free content community already has proved their worth on proprietary engines (NWN modules and Quake 3 mods etc). All it needs now is someone to tie it all together.
DRM is the ultimate free software motivator.
(Anyone remember Total Anihilation that had a multiplayer spawn install and let you play 3 computers with each valid set of disks over the LAN/Internet?)
Beep beep.
is just as valuable as any other forum opinion. Why this guy was posted on /. is beyond me (slow weekend). He says that it is guarenteed we will have to pay for play, no rentals, no used games, and no physical media. That is his GUESS people.
After reading 1/2 of the article I realized it was as useful as reading someone's opinion on any message board. He drew up educated guesses and that was it.
Now of course every industry wants a subscription like service for their product. Yearly upgrades and that sort of thing can equal huge profits. But it doesn't work in a lot of industries. Everyone thought MMO games would be HUGE after EQ. I mean EQ is a cash cow. But besides SWG which survives on the star wars name alone, no other MMO game has come close to EQ in the US. For every success I see a dozen failed attempts.
So how this author thinks I will pay $10 a month for an average game is beyond me. Doom3 and HL2 could squeeze a few months out of me but the second I stop so do my payments. And 99% of games out there AREN'T Doom3 or HL2 quality. The subscription based model would actually hurt most companies because they would rather take the $50 and run. Besides Doom3 and Half-Life2 I can't think of one game I would pay for longer than 1 month. Planetside is a great example of a FPS game trying to charge per month and failing horribly (with a decent product). And they had a reason for the subscription, server costs, while other games will not.
This author doesn't have anything to back up his opinion so its just as valid as mine (do I get the front page if I buy a domain name and post this?). The most obvious conclusion in the next 5 years of gaming is 90%+ games still being bought, rented, etc and maybe 10% have a subscription for things like Xbox2 Live and MMO type games. I rent almost every console game instead of buying it because I know I won't play it longer than a week. So if they try to force a $50 + $10 a month tag down my throat it would fail horribly and they know it.
1) Keyword:
It was like the ID code that some games use today, but instead of ID that tied itself a single copy, this method relied on keywords in the game documentation that you had to enter at the start of every game. The thinking was that if you had documentation, you must actually own the game.
Some of them were like: "Enter the last word in the third paragraph on pg 14 of the manual". Others relied on a password/countersign. Some relied on decoder wheels. Of course, these were all easily defeated by a magical invention known as a photocopier. Some hackers who were probably very bored or cheap acutally wrote hacks against these protection schemes.
2) Copy protection build into the medium.
Back then we used 5 1/4" disks. To build copy protection into the disks, game makers broke standards on the disks. Game makers did things like add extra tracks onto a disk that only the game could access. Add code that changed the how the disk drives read and wrote. Some games actually required a part to be attached to a port on your computer.
These were harder to counteract, but there were utilities that could bypass most of these protections. Again hackers at work.
Much of the new protection is predicated on the fact that there is no medium to hack. There will be some software stored on your computer but the important parts are on the server. But that leaves the communication to hack.
Well, hackers are bright people, and these new protections only give hackers a challenge. There's nothing more that hackers like than a challenge.
Another potential problem with this type of protection is that it almost requires broadband due to the high bandwidth. Currently multiplayer games only communicate data about the user and the game environment. But if it has to send code as well as data, there's a lot more bandwidth to be needed. While broadband is gaining popularity, there will be dialup only users for a long time.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This trend lead to more alternatives such as WWW.WBfree.net . They have set up a free server on which you can fly your free warbirds 2 software. This is not breaking any laws, but is definitely not popular with iENT, (who bought Warbirds off iMOL), and who run it now, for $14 per month. So you get free offline software from iENT, and a free online environment. You wouldn't have had either with a CD-purchase based game!
***You learn something Every day. And then you die.***
Retail sales will continue because people like to make impulse buys. If people wanted all their games delivered via the internet, meatspace gaming stores would have gone under already. Most gaming stores have noticed that people want to buy used stuff too, so they have new and used games. An excellent example is Software Etc., which purchased Funcoland, basically the USA's leader in used games/game equipment sales, and the Software Etc.s started selling used stuff. As a consequence, I go to Software Etc. again. We even bought the Myst trilogy DVD box set there, but mostly I buy the used stuff. As long as there are successful outlets which bring in gamers, however, video games will be sold in stores. That means, stores which sell used games, stores which sell game consoles, stores which sell gaming peripherals.
Next, let's talk about registration keys. The only thing these keys can really be used for is preventing people without them from playing on official online servers, or these days, from using the official master browser server. People will patch their way to playing, otherwise. But so-called piracy prevention methods have never been about preventing people from pirating games. Game developers are not idiots. Well, some of them are, of course. But any of the good games necessarily could not have been created by total morons. These people know it is impossible to stop piracy. The point of these copyright protection methods is to make it inconvenient to pirate the games, thus ensuring that the majority of people will pay for them.
As for the death of game rental, this commentary is largely applicable to PC games, not so much console games. Console games will continue to be distributed in physical form for some time to come, and it will be a long while until every home in america has the broadband internet access necessary to download games, which are only getting larger. Playstation 2 games are typically on DVD these days, even on broadband it takes a while to download a full DVD. Not only that, but I got the "official" word from Comcast that I'm only allowed to download 80-90 GB/month. (Yes, I finally got a AUP violation letter.) Just a few games and movie trailers, and you're over your limit. So, it's going to be a while before the death of physical media.
The fact is that the widespread adoption of internet use necessitated the use of registration keys and activation in all types of software to make software copyright violation less convenient, because it became so easy to get copied software, and cracks/deprotects/serials for same. As usual, the users are to blame, not the companies. It will still be possible to copy these games well into the future; it is still a truism that anything a person can put together, a person can take apart.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Until they come rip my 386 laptop with nethack on it out of my dead hands, I am safe.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
The bigger question that we've long been aware of is completely ignored in this article. The world needs a business model or seven which allows those who write content to profit from their work. After the original sequence of bits have been cobbled together, they can be duplicated endlessly without any help from the original author(s). The concept of "intellectual property" is crumbling, and something new is going to rise up in its place.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
...just means people will once again be able to create their own as we did before the days of Big Media.
Why is this a bad thing?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Remember CD keys?
Did he forget the generations of copy protection before this?
The C64 copy protection battles, with the crazy disk access.
The code wheels and papers, and manuals
Companies keep trying, get some success, then it starts to fail, then they improve. This is just the copy protection arms race.
A lot of these schemes (such as activation) described in the article are nothing more than good ole' fashioned copy-protection. I think in the early 80's, software makers saw copy-protection as the holy-grail, and would go to great lengths to make there wares hard to copy-- even for backup purposes. For a while, I think many folks thought it was against the law to copy a make a copy of your own VCR tape.
However, many of these copy-protection schemes. USB dongles, codes that had to be typed in with each boot-up (remember SimCity?), or extra discs that had to be kept in a 2nd drive. Most of these schemes failed because mostly what they did was make it difficult for the owners (or licensees, whatever) of the software to use it. So instead of selling 100,000 copies and having 20,000 pirated, they'd sell 80,000 and have zero pirated versions. Seems hardly worth the bother, eh? This is most recently evidenced by the TurboTax fiasco of 2003.
Right now, this push is most evident in the world of digital music sales, which are grossly restricted compared to regular CDs. I think at one point a major label will decide it's pointless to sell copy-protected (I hate the term DRM) tunes when the pirates will never pay for them anyway and can get them from other services.
Will video-game rentals and re-sales go the way of the Dodo bird? It will start to look that way for a while, then a really good game will come out with any restrictions and sales will be tremendous, despite (because of?) the casual piracy that is sure to ensue. Publishers will then remember this: organized piracy=bad, casual piracy=both good & bad, copy-protection does nothing to stop the first and may in fact encourage it, while doing a great deal to hinder the latter. They'll then ask "what's the point again?" and will use the business model that works the best for their particular game instead of trying to restrict everything to the nth degree.
Overall I don't like the idea. But there's a silver lining: I have a whole load of games I've bought, played for a few hours, and discarded. I tend to keep them in the vague thought that I might one day pick them up again (never happens), or that I can sell them on at some point (weee, that'll earn me $20, in total). With pay-to-play I'd possibly lose out on the top 5% of games, but I'd save a fortune on the crap. Perhaps this business model would discourage the release of substandard rubbish?
No refunds and no exchanges except for the same title
Then watch me come into the store every few hours and start returning every copy of the same title that they give me. Once a few like-minded geeks begin to do this as well, watch the title's defect rate shoot up. What again does Best Buy do with a return if it doesn't have another copy of the same title in stock?
The things described in the article are reality not the future.
My provider offers a list of games to download and play unlimited for a 20 euro/month.
http://www.telenet.be/gamezone/
I think it's a ripoff because this means that you have to play and complete about game a month to gain anything from it. Meaning the average game costs about 50 euro. So if you pay 20 euro a month and do more then 2 months over finishing the game you could have bought the game yourself. If your not a real gamingfreak you just ain't going to cut it.
Add to that, that you can play offline even singleplayer games because the game interface that comes with it checks up with the server. And you have to download everything all over again if you want to use the game on another PC. etc etc etc...
To say the least... this stinks...
IMHO, I think that the worst trend that has been hitting the PC gaming industry in recent years is a near-total lack of serious innovation and originality. The kinds of trends described in the article are nothing compared to this. Compared to the 1980's and early 1990's, the games of today seem to me anyway, comparatively lackluster and boring. Every major gaming company seems to be suffering from a me-too syndrome that causes the market to flood with dozens of similar games on the coattails of the last major innovation (which comes more and more seldom thanks to this phenomenon). We have hundreds of first-person shooter games and their close variants, more and more games in a genre that was saturated long ago. Real-time strategy games seem to suffer from the same problem. IMHO, the worst thing that ever happened to the gaming industry in recent years was the 3D card, which has seen more than its share of abuse at the hands of the major game companies. They seem to think that making a game 3D with impressive graphics is enough to make up for all of its shortcomings; in fact it's usually more true that abuse of the 3D engine can very quickly become a game's biggest shortcoming. Good graphics does not make up for an RPG's lack of plot and coherent storyline (cough...Ultima IX...cough), nor is it even required for many genre of games (cough...Warcraft III...cough).
DRM-ish measures in games and the other inconveniences mentioned are relatively minor compared to the mess that is a mediocre or unoriginal game.
This article is a better, more insightful read into what's wrong with the gaming industry today.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
what's to stop some enterprising case modder from doing the same?
Wal-Mart will never sell it because it doesn't have an established national brand on it. A significant chunk of the proverbial unwashed masses shop exclusively at the huge store chain.
That is, unless "some enterprising case modder" is Apex.
PC-based gaming is on a decline. My two teens asked for not a single game for their windows machines, only X-Box. That's probably a good thing, since they're running 450MHz machines with wimpy 3D cards, and they'd have demanded upgrades.
And yet, they play on those machines constantly: java/flash or small games from places like MSN, Weebl, Homestar Runner, etc., and "The Apprentice" to let them play MtG or other card games without owning the cards.
Occasionally they foray into their unfinished back stock too.
Meanwhile, the subscribe or die approach is hitting X-Box: X-Box Live is the only requirement listed for "Phantasy Star Online" until you open the package, at which point you find that a separate subscription is needed to play the online game!
Design for Use, not Construction!
[Insert industry X] decides that [insert details of hair-brained scheme] is best way to make even more money.
It's not like it's important. Get on with your life.
Meanwhile, News at eleven.
I don't share such bleak predictions for the future, even though I know they are within the realm of possibility. Why? Because that isn't how I want to play games, and that's what matters to the market in the end.
Anyone remember Divx as something other than an avi format? Or does anyone remember when the future of television was supposed to be pay-per-view after its success in the 80s?
The opportunities aren't being afforded by new advances in technology, they've been there for a while.
If companies want to stake their future on consumers playing the DRM game along with them that's fine - it's their dollar to lose or win. Corporate efforts to institute it across-the-board are mind-boggling, but I always have the option to buy something else - and the march towards centralized control, whether it's a slow and concerted push or a quick overhaul, will always create a niche market as a result. If the niche products are absorbed or converted, the niche remains. Ah, capitalism!
So I'm not concerned with companies banding together to push DRM - because all they're doing is shooting their monopolies in the foot, and giving potential competitors a (healthy, unshot) foot in the door - I'm concerned with cartels pulling strings in DC to make standards law.
If the conglomerates are willing to throw away market share in the mad shift towards total information control, why should we stop them? I eagerly await the demise of Sony & Microsoft-qua-game companies.
As much as it is Valve's prerogative to sell software with a limited lifetime and useability, is it also my prerogative not to buy it. It is entirely up to them, then...
I remember going back to my home town and visiting what I remembered to be a great old shop. It had been replaced, to my surprise, with a Microplay (this is maybe 10 years ago). I went in and asked around, and it turned out that the previous place, which had rented games as well as sold them, had to go as NAFTA came into force. They had to meet anti-pirating standards, and that meant no more renting floppy-based games. So the owners bought into the franchise and went all-console.
It's like you say, one side builds new protections, the other breaks them down. It's always been like this. Look at the history of radar traps (and detectors, and detector detectors, and so on)...
Man, you brought back memories. I hated those "what is the last word" manuals. The code-wheel I made for one was cute but sloppy -- often easily digging up the wrong word. Precious "cracked" copies of these games were hard to come by and highly valued.
This is going to make it really tough playing it at work in a DoD Tempest-shielded room. I may have to drill a hole to run a net cable ...
(Just kidding, guys: put away your ISP subpoenas)
It's far harder to accidentally corrupt a plastic disc than it is to have a transfer error screw up an application.
If you have a scratch on your plastic disc, you'd better hope that the disc specifications put enough error correction data on at manufacturing time to fix the problem. If you're transferring data over a network, during most of the transfer you only need enough data to reliably perform error detection, since over a noisy link the client can re-request corrupted blocks and the server can increase the percentage of ECC data dynamically.
terrabyte
<with substance='salt' quantity='1' unit='grain'>
You mean terabyte. From tera, meaning "shitloads", and byte. A terrabyte is much larger, and is the quantity of data required to describe the entire Earth.
</with>
I beleive comments like these coincide with those saying linux is dead. Sorry, I just don't buy it.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
I was one of the horde of people who had their PS modded so as to be able to play copied games, and what an experience that was (apart from visiting the drug-den-like home of the modder -- velvet covered walls and a persian cat -- meow). I end up with 50 games and quickly realize that 45 of them are not worth my time. Sure, this appraisal was affected by my ability to compare so many at once (NEVER get your kids more than one game at the same time), but it staggered me how much I would have had to spend on each in the store, only to figure out it was pure trash -- and I'm not just talking about taste, here. Bad design, bad graphics, bad gameplay, bad, bad, bad.
If you'd been quicker, you might have gotten on the play-and-trade treadmill and gotten more than your $20 for the lot, but that isn't much fun, either. When I got on, it was with Super NES. Buy a game for $90 (Cdn); trade it in (you'd get less for cash) for $40 in two months' time (if you picked a hit), so you can get the next $90 game. At the end of a run like this, you have almost no games, a whole lot less money, and the distinct feeling that you have permitted yourself to be royally screwed.
I guess I will just not play games anymore. There are, actually, other things I'd rather do. Like read.
Must-not-watch TV!
The way he goes on about CD keys, you'd think that they were the root of all gaming evils.
I don't read the site normally, so I have no idea how old the guy is, but surely he can't be so young as to not remember some of the hoops we had to jump through back in the old, 8 bit, tape-based days?
Hands up who remembers spending an hour or more fiddling with their tape deck to get Jet Set Willy to load? And then have to type in a particular colour code once it had loaded? Or the LensLok system that Elite used, where you held a very breakable plastic lens up to the screen to make a code readable? Some games even came with little hardware dongles.
He seems to think that it all started with Q3, when in reality, the computer games industry has been doing that sort of thing for about 20 years. Ubiquitous, high-speed net connections may well take it to the next level, but I can't see it being anywhere near as bad as he paints it. If that were true, it should've already been intolerable for a decade or so.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
With the proliferation of the video game market and the recent (last year and a half) realization by people that video games make a lot of money...
Every argument that the marketplace is going to stink goes directly against every economic theory out there. Greater competition and demand is a great thing. I am tired of people saying that a LUXURY ITEM like video games is having some EA games conspiracy or something like that. This is pure drivel.
When I was a child I payed sometimes $35 for a game on the original NES system. Now, I pay $50 for Call of Duty. Which do you think was a better benefit? Which was the bigger bargain? Which is the best deal? I think that argument alone is enough to debunk what people have been saying about the video game industry going to hell in a handbasket... and that we should all put on our crash helmets and prepare to be screwed.
This whole argument is bunk. Go spin some of those tinfoil conspiracies elsewhere... and stop crying because you can't rip off games anymore. When someone rips off the GPL, everyone is up in arms, but a game that is cracked? TOTALLY COOL, RIGHT?
Get a grip, whiners. Go live in a mud hut for a month if you need to get away from the screwjob of the video games because you think you payed too much for a copy of MADDEN 2004 or whatever.
This guy starts off his argument claiming thatg because Quake III required a CD key and the previous two incarnations did not that the gaming world is about to come screaching to a halt? How old is this guy, 13?
I'm sure the rest of us who have lifespans that cross more than a decade rememeber the days when in order to play the game you were prompted to find the x word of the y paragraph of the z page of the instruction manual that the game came with. Every single time you wanted to play you needed to have that manual by your side ready to hunt down any word.
Even in the world of broadband the level of content in games is increasing. These same claims were made when 14.4k modems became available and the huge 200k games of the time were distributed on BBSes. I don't see most of it being realized; single player games with mostly static content will remain pay-up-front and get media. The world of multiplayer only adds a new facet.
Even if you can only download a chapter at a time, you can _gather_ the entire book. Once you have the book, you can modify the phone-home code(tricky, but nothing compared to what has been done before). Another alternative would be to simply set up your host file to point to a different server to provide the pieces of the game on demand. The community of gamers usually responds pretty clearly to these types of restrictions.
"Hex, Bugs, and Rockn'Roll"
Rather than paying for "the software" what you are paying for is connection rights to the server. If a game was written to allow free-as-in-beer downloading and the servers required payment for connection time, then a competetive market would be there, which is, IMO, a good thing.
This works particually for MMOs and multiplayer FPSs. It might even be possible to open source the client software and have the server side code remain closed - although that would require rigourous security procedures it would allow for greater community enjoyment of community written features.
You just need to look at this from a different angle. Think of it like paying for petrol for your car.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
"Many will say that these things can't come to pass, that the public will rebel at some point. They'll dig up the DivX debacle or other technological boondoggles from the past decade as evidence. Yet, it will only take one best-selling game, like Half-life 2, to introduce the masses to new and more restrictive technologies that will then become standard"
MIT published a book a few years ago called "The Bathroom, the Kitchen, and the Aesthetics of Waste : A Process of Elimination". Among other things, the book discusses the history of toilet paper.
In the late 1800s corporations first tried to market toilet paper, but the attempt totally failed. People were not foolish enough to pay money for paper they were going to use to rub shit on. But after a few years and the beginning of the "consumer" era toilet paper became a successful product. Attitudes changed over the years, with a gradual adoption of the consumer mentality eased along by increasing amounts of marketing.The mere fact that a marketing attempt or product has failed in the past does not at all prove that it will fail in the present or in the future.
the lengthy article finally asserts: "And that's where were headed, like it or not. No physical media. No rentals. No used games. No sharing games among friends. Limited hardware upgrades. Pay-to-play. Unless something seriously changes the course of the industry, this is the future."
and even at the end of the painfully apocalyptic argument, he still hasn't managed to convince me this will be a bad thing at all.
games without physical media - wonderful! i lose the warm comfort of actually owning the shiny disc, but i gain the ability to install and play the game whenever and wherever, without worrying about lugging the media with my laptop, having to have the CD in the disc drive, losing it, etc.
no rentals? now that's absurd. of course there will be rentals. publishers aren't so dumb that they don't realize many gamers don't actually want to buy everything; that they're willing to pay a cheaper rate to try a game out for a short while. and an automatic delivery system like steam would make it easy to do just that.
indeed, steam would be much better for the independent developers than the current blockbuster-style rentals, of which the author is so fond. at a rental shop, when i rent a PS2 game the profit goes to the shop. over steam, however, the developer could arrange to rent their games, earning the profits themselves, and only paying valve for the use of their infrastructure.
then the author's attacks shift to DRM. "limited hardware upgrades" and "no sharing among friends" pop up in a frequent, if circumspect, manner. and here he's finally getting it. the new approach goes to great lengths to prevent piracy.
what bothers me, however, is that the author seems convinced that anti-piracy measures are bad. why? while i understand the motivations of the typical high-schoolers who want the ability to copy and trade as many games as they can, only the most ridiculous ones would argue that piracy is actually a positive social force for which our techologies should accommodate.
that's just patently absurd. people who make the games need to get paid. and our technologies need to prevent people from stealing the fruits of others' years of hard work.
but this the author doesn't seem to grasp.
My other car is a cons.
Games are moving furiously towards this end. With Steam moving full steam ahead for HL2, its only a matter of time before all games are delivered online. Also, for example, my copy of Star Wars Galaxies. I purchased it the day it came out and enjoyed for awhile but quickly grew bored. I tried to sell the physical media discs to my friend with the cd-key and SOE stated that once the key is activated it cant be transferred. I found this unacceptable and will never buy from SOE again. The right of first sale has been taken from me for no good reason.
For Frodo
Consider what companies like: Consistent predictable revenue streams. It makes it easier for them to decide what to fund for next year. Consider what companies don't like: Piracy. So, as time goes on more and more pay to play games are going to come out. Those pay to play games are going to be much better funded, and therefore cooler on average, than games that are not. Yes, there will always be games out there that aren't pay for play, but over time they will have smaller and smaller marketshare. They will go the way of Shareware games. What was the last Shareware game you played consistently? And when was the last time you sent the author $$$? Personally I am dismayed by the trend, I do not want another bill every month. Perhaps I'll just spend more money on boardgames?
Bleak Future for Videogame Publishers
No one ever washed a rented car.
Ask yourself, What main reason that Half Life 2 is so anticiapted after a six year interval between games?
You could say that Half Life was voted best game of the year in 1998.
So what though. Many games were lauded in the late 90's and are nowhere to be seen now.
What has kept Half Life alive and at the forefront of people minds is the plethora of mods that the gaming community has created over those six years. From Counter Strike to Day of Defeat you find hundreds if not thosands of people playing Half Life mods every month.
A subscription game probably won't be mod-able and Valve will have lost the best advertising any company could ever want.
Are subscription games coming? The answer is a definite Yes. Is that a bad thing? Maybe. Well have to see if the monthly fees are enough incentive to game companies for them to build and maintain their games better.
Because just as no one has ever washed a rented car, no one will Mod rented software.
I have no
"Among the predictions: no more rentals from video stores, no used games market, no lending games to friends, less upgradeable computers, pay-as-you-play software subscriptions, and other consumer-unfriendly changes. In all, less gaming value for your hard-earned dollar."
I really have to disagree with the whole "pay-as-you-play" thing getting any momentum. Right now the whole MMORPG market is flooded with clones (there hasn't been a good release since UO prior 98), and it will only be a matter of time before people will get sick of playing the same game. Not only that but do you know anyone who would play(pay) for more than 3 of these? The fact that Midway is re-releasing its older machines should say something. They need to start making games gamers want, instead of worrying about how to take my money.
On a side note, I haven't purchased any new games in over a year except for Ghost Recon for the PS2, and that was only after it was under $20.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
What videogame compaines really want is for games to become a SERVICE and no longer be a PRODUCT. That way, they get money constantly despite the fact that the game is already finished and they're not doing anything to it anymore (unless they provide updates and such regularly, but that's nothing compared to designing a new game from scratch).
But it's not just videogame companies. Microsoft would LOVE to get money from all its users 24/7, but they can't.... at least now. You see, the wide range of expertise of their users as well as the fact that businesses rely on their products prevent or at least delay their doing so. If Microsoft were to start making people use web-based programs on internet-access-devices and making them save data to Redmond servers... they'd be out of business in a week. They're going into it gradually. Videogames are different. The target market is teenage kids who don't know RAM from ROM or "UID" from "EULA."
I don't think it'll happen any time soon... but if it does, it's not going to be software first- it'll definitely be the videogame market.
Esoteric reference.
Don't worry. Any self-respecting gamer who has played with voice chat on Xbox knows pay-for-play is doomed.
The idea seems cool, until you strap on your headset and start listening to your teammates' squeaky prepubescent voices. No thanks. I'll stick to lan parties.
Why, yes I do. So do other people:
I recall much wailing and gnashing of teeth when my group of friends pooled our money to buy a copy.
You can emulate all the old games!
Its not like those games are any less fun. You save millions of dollars in quarters too!
But check it, no one's forcing you to play the new games. And since so many of them suck, you shouldn't eat everything the industry feeds you. When the customer wises up, the industry will cater to them. But as long as you have 'mom picks for birthday present' factor, game companies will just want to pack the shelves with crap.
God spoke to me
As a long-time gamer who considers himself pretty "in control" of things, it's perhaps a litte bit tough to admit this. But I think the gaming industry really is working towards outright addiction as their best marketing tool.
For example, take the MMORPGs. They're addictive by design. Just like a casino, which has you perform repetitive behaviors (while paying for the privilege the entire time), with the lure of a reward - MMORPGs use every trick in the book to keep people hooked on them and renewing their monthly subscriptions.
Multiplayer online games create some of this same "addiction factor", because they tap into people's competitive nature and desire for social interaction. With traditional "you vs. the computer/game console" games, most people would eventually tire of playing them simply because they started feeling guilty about not being social with people around them, or just plain "lazy". In multiplayer gaming, these "issues" are practically eliminated - because #1, you can type (or even voice chat) with your competition, so you *are* being social. #2, it's less likely you'll stop playing out of pure guilt that you're "just sitting around instead of getting some exercise", because you know all those characters on the other end are putting just as much time into the gaming as you are.
I found it very interesting watching my wife play the Shadowbane MMORPG, and listening to what the other players kept saying. Many people didn't even enjoy playing anymore, yet they spend hours each night online, and even bought the expansion pack. Mostly, it was because they felt some sort of duty to stay online and assist their teammates. (It became more "work" than "play", in other words - but they developed such complex interactions with other players and achieved such a high "rank" and "status" in the game, they couldn't bear to walk away from it and "lose it all".)
Now that game companies realize they have these factors on their side, why would they see good reason to go back to physical media (cartridges, etc.)? They know they'll get their revenue stream as long as they can hook you on the initial game environment - whether they make you enter a unique CD key, download the thing online, or keep paying monthly subscription fees.
An ever increasing back catalogue of existing games that don't have such restrictions
What console and arcade games are you talking about that were released by their authors into free redistribution? The MAME team knows of only three freely redistributable arcade game programs. Boardsets and dumping equipment are too expensive for casual gamers to own.
Take a look at all the consoles over the years, that's a huge library of games.
Eventually, Wal-Mart will stop selling new PS2, GameCube, and Xbox consoles, and people without eBay experience have trouble buying older consoles or older console games.
copy-protected (I hate the term DRM)
I don't see how copy-protected is any less double-speak than digital rights management. In fact, I hate copy-protected more, since it can't be easily morphed into the phrase "digital restriction management".
Copy protection would logically refer to stuff like error correction that would ensure that even if the copy process wasn't perfect, the copy could be used. A RAID would be a good example of this. Source code escrow accounts for clients would be another form of copy protection.
My favorite term is crippled, since it is dead-on and it has the proper (negative) connotation.
Unfortunately, the article runs on the fallacious argument that because the situation has come to a certain point now, that it is doomed to get progressively worse in the future. This is known as the "Slippery Slope" fallacy.
As with all fallacious statements, the fact that it is as such does not remove the possibility of it happening. However, it does discredit the argument of it happening as valid, and thus the argument should not be percieved as an inevitable truth.
In my opinion, the software industry would never get to the point described here. Pay to play? No user-stored content? This would be infeasable for many reasons, including:
1. User backlash/preference. From peon to power user, people prefer to have a hard copy of their software. If two companies, selling similarly featured software, were to follow two different models: one of giving hard copies and one of distributing content online or (God forbid) pay per use, the winner will always be hard copies. Even if media like CDs are no longer distributed, the customer will always want to see something; even if it's a file that they download. But what if all companies switch to that format? They wouldn't, because of the Capitalist principle of competition. If a company knows that they will recieve X more sales if they sell hard copies when their competition gives nothing to show the customers, then they will switch to hard copies. The other company, then, will have to adapt their services back to the old system or lose potential profit.
2. Publisher backlash. Without physical media, game publishers would have no business to attend to. Publishers of games traditionally are the ones that fund development. Whenever you see a game that comes in professional packaging and published by a notable firm, nine times out of ten it looks that good because the Publishers put a lot of money into development. Without that development money, most if not all game production companies would lack the immediate funds necessary to survive the 2-4 year production of games. A 2-4 year stint without profit is painful without someone to back you up. And if they cut out the Publishers, that's exactly what would happen.
There's probably other reasons too, but I'd better get back to work. =)
Seriously. How many of you would vote with your dollars and simply not buy games that were severely crippled?
I know I wouldn't.
But yes, subscriber based content a la MMORPGs does seem to be the going trend, and I'm not too upset with that since you're usually paying for the continued development and patching of the game.
I do, however, take issue with being forced to pay $50 up-front for a game I have to purchase a subscription to even play.
I think MMORPGs should be free to download; since you can't play without paying it's not like you're going to pirate their game.
Anyone know of any MMORPGs that do this?
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
I think one of the most unique game designing companies has been skunk studios. Why they haven't been able to score a deal with the PSX or Xbox is beyond me.
They have two unique games: Spelvin & Sveerz
The concept is common word and tone/sound match up - but the gameplay is VERY original.
The new Mario Cart on the Gamecube is a really unique spin on racing as well.
Tetrisphere for the N64 was a unique spin on Tetris.
Call Of Duty is so realistic that it too is unique.
Pearls Game is a unique PDA and Internet Flash Game.
You also fail to see that repackaing old games is actually original : MAME or Intellivision Lives for instance.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
"At first, you will be able to purchase outright and actually keep what you buy, but eventually the model will probably evolve into pay-to-play."
Lets not forget that it is the consumer who chooses what they buy, not the companies who make the software. If the technology they introduce is restrictive enough it will have a big impact on the sales of games, and companies will listen to their bottom line.
"Also, services like Steam claim to offer anti-cheating features, which when combined with the next generation of Windows security (see below), will possibly hinder the development of modifications of games."
Absolutely unequivically WAY OFF. Half Life was a good single player game, but that isn't what drove its sale for 5 years. Mods like Counter-Strike did that, and Valve nor any other gaming company is going to forget that. They have many people developing commercial quality games for FREE for them. It doesn't get any better than that. Instead of it becomming harder to make modifications, I think it will be easier. The SDKs will be much more complete and friendly to the beginner. The companies will hold more events like Valve's mod expo. Companies will provide monetery incentive to successful mods by offering the buy the rights to the games and sell them, or allow the mod to be sold through their systems, such as Steam. Contests will be held like the recent "Make something Unreal" contest for Unreal modifications.
"There are already examples of all of these processes right now. My understanding is that by playing Half-life through Valve's Steam, your client is only downloading parts of the game as they're needed, caching only the content you're likely to need in the near future."
I wouldn't trust anyone's predictions when they come from someone who hasn't even taken the time to research their subject with commonly available public knowledge. Steam has what they call a "cache". Basically, it is a set part of the game that is downloaded every time. It isn't "streaming" the game to you. This is downloaded before the game is launched. It isn't just what you are likely to use, it is just a small, but critical part of the game that must be downloaded every time.
"Yet, it will only take one best-selling game, like Half-life 2, to introduce the masses to new and more restrictive technologies that will then become standard."
Restrictive technology will always play a factor in consumers' buying decisions. If it is very restrictive, then the product is going to have to either be very necessary (like XP) or very good (HL2?). Other products that use this technology but that don't fall into one of those two categories are going to sell even less. There will be companies that are slow adopters of this technology, and when their games sell more other companies will follow the bottom line. I just don't think the software industry has enough soliderity to force down annoying, restrictive technology down the throats of their consumers. If we don't like it, they won't sell it.
As long as most games do not live up to the expectations raised by publishers, they can get more money from tricking peopel into buying them then from pay per play.
Subscription for gaming works, but only if the content is of high enough quality and the price is low enough to not be much of an issue.
I might be interested in a setup where I pay a monthly fee, and get to play a select set of games for it every month. Selection should change and playtime per month should be unlimited. If I want more of the game, I should be able to buy a permanently usable copy.
One could think of the many more fanatical online fps players who contribute for maintaining clan servers, and there is a market quite comparable of that of sunscription television.
I recently had a crisis of conscience in deciding whether or not to try FFXI or SW:Galaxies (after years of bashing Everquest players). However, a few of my friends and HL clan mates had picked up these games (mostly SW:G) and were going on about how great they were. So when I started looking into it I realized there really is NO way to try out an MMORPG short of physically going to a friends house and playing on THEIR account, without having to buy a 50 dollar game. Then amazingly Sony introduced a trial buddy system for SW:G that allowed someone to install of their friends disks and play for 7-days. So I embarked into the world of an MMORPG for the first time, and I enjoyed it... a lot, like I was afraid I would. So my trial ran out and I went out and picked up a subscription card, only to find out they still want me to go and buy the game itself (that I already have installed) for 50 bucks w/ a 30 day supscription attached (as opposed to 30 bucks for a 60 day card). I understand that part of these proceeds go to the game developers and studio and what not BUT I think this far in most of those costs are at least somewhat recouped and they're making a profit off of the subscriptions anyway, is it really too much to allow someone to just pay-to-play? I have a hard time bringing myself to spend 50 dollars and then another 30 just to play a game that's already installed on my computer, I see a future for streamed and pay-to-play games (however horrible that may be for gamers) but these companies really need to look into what they're asking of their customers.
Via the law. Why? To the companies, media renting and used selling is piracy. Plain and simple. It has the same effects as piracy. It lowers sales overall, and people get to use something without paying them for it. Sure, there's fair use rights, but that doesn't mean that it's legal or ethical to purchase it. Not that I agree with this. However, if you really wanted to reward the producer above all else, then to their bottom line, rental/used purchases ARE piracy.
less business for the gaming industry as a whole... more for those that stay friendly.
The music industry is finding this out. Yeah, they're cutting down on piracy, but sales are not increasing...
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Aside from the fact that consumers want a physical, tangible medium and don't want their games to stop working 5 years from now because John Madden wants more money, this articles writer is missing a major point, one completely beyond the control of the gaming industry.
ISP's.
I don't mean people on dialup either (although they are still the vast majority of American internet users.) I mean bandwidth caps. So I'm Bob Comcast user, and oh look, its January 17, since I play Half-real Tournament 2016 a few hours a day, I've used up tons of bandwidth, since the server caches most of the games information.
End of the month rolls around, and I get a letter from Comcast saying to stop using so much bandwidth, so I cancel my game subscription. Half-Real Tournament 2016 developers don't get paid. Developers attack marketing guy who claimed subscriptions was a great idea. Marketing guy gets a clue.
You just need to look at this from a different angle. Think of it like paying for petrol for your car.
The difference is that modes of transport which require fuel, such as cars, offer obvious and undeniable advantages over the forms of transport which don't, such as the bicycle - speed, lack of effort, the ability to carry much more baggage...
What advantage does the subscription model offer over current software, which I pay for once (for about the price of two months' subscription, going by current proposals) and can then use however I like, including online play at no extra cost?
Car analogies are a bit silly, but how about this one - if someone tried to sell you a new type of car which had to have the oil replaced every day ("to protect you against problems caused by old oil, the car won't start till you replace it"), would you buy one of those?
Video games will continue to get larger, and remain inconvenient to download even via broadband. Most gamers aren't willing to wait for the download of new content and hot-updates everytime they want to play the game. Part of the reason I quit Everquest is that it was double (or more) the price to let family members play too. I had to wait for new content to load in every time I started the game. And most of all, I was very distubed at having to click through the same (I hope) 50 page legal agreement every time I wanted to play.
Many games are starting to phone home every time they are run, even in single player. Gamers should get an application specific firewall like ZoneAlarm to deny these programs internet access to the net so that developers don't get used to the connection being there. Unless you're using their servers, you shouldn't have to register or do any verification. I've yet to find a single-player game that won't run without an internet connection, and I won't buy one that does (even in HL2 or Doom 3 require it, god forbid).
BTW, developers need to start adding LAN support for multiplayer games to allow one copy of a game to have at least 4 players. This is the de-facto standard on consoles (though on a single machine), and a big reason why NOCD hacks are made in the first place. Developers shouldn't expect people to buy multiple copies of a game to play with their friends.
For this future to be realized, the companies would need really fat pipes to the gamers' consoles, and consoles need a big storage capacity. These costs are never going to be lower than massive pressing of physical media.
Any current videogame worth to be pressed on a DVD is anywhere between 1 and 9GB in size. A best-seller videogame can go from 100,000 to 1,000,000 pressed DVDs, think on the necessary bandwidth and storage space to distribute it. Now compare that each DVD is pressed by the cents.
One might say that for the next several generations of hardware and broadband that will be solved, but then the physical media will evolve too, HDTV, HD-DVD, Dolby, DTS and other new technologies will raise again the size of the average videogame.
Rentals, retailers and other distribution channels can't die that easily. There are games that are more suitable for online distribution and monthly suscriptions, but trying to do this for every videogame will result in killing the industry's diversity. That would leave room only for mini-games or old ports (cheap to make and quick to download) or overly-hyped super productions (the only kind of games that will make money on massive distribution), and will kill innovation even further.
Even so, I think all companies (Microsoft at the top, with their EULAs and whatnot) want this future where nothing you pay ever becomes your property, and they will try very hard, but then I'm sure their business models will begin to show their flaws and the physical media will look attractive again. The bad thing is the consumer and the industry as a whole will suffer in the process.
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
when this happen, we will have real time VNCServers. *Yawns*
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
Back then, every computer sold didn't come with a CD burner. To 'pirate' Quake, you had to borrow the CD from a friend. The friend eventually wanted the CD back, so there was an incentive to buy your own.
What about the first sale doctrine in copyright which allows resale after the first purchase of a game? On a personal note, hope these predictions ring untrue b/c I don't want to run into him and he spent most of his free time on PS2 so I am hoping that games develope enough to keep him inside his apartment.
Jax
create open source gaming. or at least freeware. so then everyone can play everyone else's games.
That being said, I'm having a lot of fun playing "older" games right now.
seems simple to me, if enough people reject it, companys that banked on it will fail and the people will win. In theory at least.
I want 2D games back.
Even in the digital age, as consumers we still need an 'online store' to distribute the downloads available. Sure we could end up with a whole load of proprietary servers, one for each games publisher, or even one per developer - however as we have seen recently in the downloadable music market, iTunes is winning in the market because it has the largest catalogue available. People are busy, and will always want 'one stop shops'.
Blockbusters, as the world's largest rental brand, should be ruling this market. They should have the most experience, in getting people to part with their $$$ for the right to play for a period of time - and then securing repeat business again and again. Having a load of 'bricks and mortar' stores is not what makes their business tick - it IS letting people pay less than an outright purchase, for a reduced set of rights.
If they fail to see what it is that makes their business unique, and how to innovate and apply that to the new online age, they deserve the fate that they will surely get.
Everyone here probably remembers Internet Appliances, right? You know, those loss-leader crippled computers that would provide basic web access via dialup and required a higher-than-average-cost (for Internet access) monthly fee. Yea, those did real well, didn't they?
The author of this article is making the same mistakes as the people that thought Internet appliances would take off. The author is looking at a small segment of the gaming market, out of context, and assuming it is the direction the entire gaming market is going to take.
Yes, for some games, a monthly fee is appropriate. As others have said, if the game has a continuing operating cost to the company that is producing it (new levels/quests/etc., server upkeep, paying people to moderate/admin the game, etc.) and ALSO offers the consumers value for their monthly fee, a subscription model is well justified.
Maybe some companies will try a subscription model for games that should instead be sold - there's no reason they can't try. If the past is any indication though, competition and people voting with their wallet will quickly send such ideas the way of Divx (the original Circuit City DVD competitor, not the MPEG4 codec) and the Netpliance I-Opener.
What I do think we'll see in the future is the same thing we're seeing now... If you want to pirate a game, fine - but the second you try to connect that game to the outside world, don't expect it to work. With a modded Xbox, for example, you can "backup" games to your heart's content - but you cannot play them on Xbox Live. This isn't an indication of game companies planning on something more devious in the future, they're just simply using the tools they have available now to cut down on piracy. Whether or not you're still able to make backups to play on your own system in the future will not be determined by gaming companies interest in subscription models, but by whether or not people buy into "Trusted Computing" aka Palladium.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
This may be seen as good and bad, but like anything, will take time to evolve. Personally, I have refused to buy any game that requires a subscription on top of a $50 initial buying fee. So have over a dozen of my friends and family. It is a ridiculous concept to pay so much money for something that you do not own, and never have the option to own. So, while the gaming industry is making oodles of money off of this concept, they will also be driving away gamers. How many 12 year olds do you know that can pay monthly subscriptions fees, let alone even have a checking account or a credit card? If the trend goes as the author suggests, the gaming industry might lose their biggest audience (kids). Or, what might happen is that it will force more users to the other side, like XP's activation service did. Granted it is not a large number, but if such brutal restrictions, high costs, and lack of ownership are the only option, people will make a second option. Smaller gaming companies might emerge making games for any of the platforms, and in my best hope, will target Linux desktops as that picks up momentum. When not given a choice I think people will make one. So, if this trend continues as the author stated, I think it will only be a temporary low in gaming (well, for me and my friends, since we won't be purchasing them :) until a viable alternative arises from the lower depths to compete and reverse this incredibly insane notion of subscription fees, plus purchase fees, plus lack of ANY kind of ownership for well over $100 worth of hard earned money, with nothing to show for it! I think the same will happen with games as has been done with many overly priced software and OS' ... it will be community ware in some similar manner such as much of the GNU/GPL licensed software, currently. It is a type of a rebellion against capitalism...the people are speaking, and will be heard, despite how much their elected officials are bribed...err...lobbied with ;)
So, the bad is that it is too expensive and nothing to show for it, and I won't be playing any of these games that I otherwise would have played. The good is that it might make games open source, or free, and/or target other platforms besides Windows.
The whole concept of "software subscriptions" bothers me. Sure, if I am playing SWG or Evercrack I can understand that. However, just to play a single player game I find it ludicrous to have to download entire chunks of the game at the whim of a server or developer. I know we are doing that somewhat now with patches and updates and the like, but I don't like having to ask the internet for permission every damn time I want to run an application.
Also in the news, e-books from Amazon will obiliterate the printed book market, grocery delivery services will annihilate the brick and mortar grocery stores, DigiScent smelling PC devices are the next video cards, broadband video retails are the wave of the future, and PointCast rocks.
(I'd have thrown in more digitally oriented links, but the websites are all, well, gone)
Good post - I wanted to add to this point you made above. I think people are underestimating both the political influence of Blockbuster, and the nature of disc-based media.
Blockbuster predicts that half of their revenue will come from game rentals in the next 3 years. They are moving accordingly to allocate 50% of each location's shelf space to console games. Blockbuster has an absolutely huge influence on the movie industry (much in the same way that WalMart does on the music industry). They are probably the reason we can rent games at all - renting video games was made illegal in the 80s, and still applies to PC games, but I believe the proviso to exclude console games from this came from a Blockbuster lobby (another reason PC games are in decline comparatively.)
The disc thing. We will always have fixed and removable discs (or whatever) that will hold more than you can download in a reasonable amount of time. It is pretty much an inescapable fact of media storage technology. Hell, I bet it'll be cheaper to sell games on bloody hard drives than it will be to download them soon. With consumer broadband costs tending up... and hard drives at $1/gig (Canadian!)... and HD-DVDs on the way...
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Guess my priorities are truly misplaced.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
if that were really going to happen, gamers would stop buying the restrictive systems. no sharing games w/friends? ha! like that's ever gonna happen. nobody would buy something like that
In all, less gaming value for your hard-earned dollar.
Don't spend your hard-earned dollars for crappy games. All and all, game companies will only charge what they can get away with charging. If I have to pay a subscription fee for Diablo II, I probably never would have bought it, and I certainly wouldn't have bought the expansion, and I have a feeling a lot of people would have cancelled their subscriptions after their 1.10 patch came out.
Likewise, if I had to subscribe to every game for a video console, there is absolutely no incentive for me to pay any money for that console. Maybe I'm in the minority in thinking this way, but I doubt it.
The way telco and cable co's are now-a-days (here in canada, Telus ASDL has a 2 gig cap (?) on the monthly download total), I would be surprised if you could get away (in the future), with a lot of people downloading big games, (yes, games probablly will be terrabyte size and have really big AI engines and require massive data rate access to the inernet), the whole internet pricing structure will have to change (get a magnitude cheaper, more realistic charges for pushing bits around, better, cheaper fiber to the home, ultra miniature (nano-electronic/optical). The server technology will be built into the cables themselves, no more rack mounted ancient dinosaur tech (imagin if your computer was implemented with 70's tech, you'ed be sitting on a 25 million dollar cray machine trying to run doom 1 and windoze 3.1 with a crappy ega type interface and no sound), so future net tech will probablly just server on a small box on a pole somewhere). The only trouble will super advanced net tech (in the future) is the capability of super advanced net monitoring by future companies looking for p2p and copying, open source non-corporate (not MS or Disney controlled software, pc systems etc)
No doubt this is a move to curb piracy, but as usual with these "clever" ways to fight it, there's always a way around it.
Those pirating console games are people who know how and where to get a mod chip installed and how/where to download/find the games. The people who copy console games aren't the average joe who will be fooled by this new system.
They are intelligent people who will look into the new ways of how to copy games. Look at GameCube.. Nintendo though it was fool proof, but if you know anything about the Phantasy Star Online exploit (although, a bit more advanced than modding/copying), then you'll know that the GC is just as exposed and vulerable as a modded PS2/XBox with game images constantly being uploaded to usenet.
I can't blame 'em for trying, I guess, but I really do wish they'd stop inconveniencing their customers to try and stop the inevitable.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
All these measures are just going to make Downloading Games more apealing... They will never come up witha way to prevent people from Cracking what ever scheme they try to impliment..
P2P needs a good slogan.. like "Resistance is Futile.. Your Media will Be Assimilated and Distributed"
P2P is here to stay... Instead of fight it Change your business model and make it more convient to pay for the Product rather than grab it off a P2P environment...
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
it could be tricky because they could shorten game life and you would not be able to play "old game"
want to play? get the new game that require the new hardware!
Sorry, it just seems that the article makes the assertion that this "will" happen without mentioning "why" or "how." The market trends he describes would only apply to the PC market anyway, and no one rents PC games.
Furthermore, he makes assertions that are out-and-out wrong: Both EBGames and Gamestop sell used copies of Warcraft III, Half-Life, etc in their physical stores. The only place they don't sell these titles is online, mainly because the condition of used PC games varies so much: Console games are accepted in trade only if they have their packaging and documentation (usually). PC games are often accepted in just a jewel case. So while a store may have 12 used copies of Used PC Game of the Moment, 5 will just have the disc, 3 will have the documentation, 3 will just be in the box with no documentation, and 1 will be complete.
His whole argument is based around the idea that it will take just one bestselling game "like Half-Life 2" to be sold this way to make it the future. Well, Half-Life 2 isn't out yet, so it's not bestselling. Furthermore, if it's only available in a format where I don't own it when I buy it, I won't have it. At least, not legally.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
One reason why the companies DO want to do this is because game prices have been pretty stagnant over the last 2 decades.
I mean, Super Mario Brothers 3 sold millions of copies at $50 each in 1988, and today Grand Theft Auto 3 and VC sold millions of copies each at $50 each.
$50 x 1,000,000 in 1988>$50 x 1,000,000 in 2004
So, not that I support this (which I don't), but the game companies haven't upped the price of games in 15 years or so, so they're just trying to make more $ in other ways. (In fact, I remember in the early-mid 90's there was a temporary trend in which games were sold for $59.99 - I remember pre-ordering Rebel Assault II for that much).
Currently, broadband service is still lacking in many parts of the US and the world. I live only 7 miles away from the nearest downtown area, but DSL is not available in my home town. Until a decent solution to dial-up exists in the majority of the country at a reasonable price, download-as-you-go games will never catch on. Considering how much data goes into each level in Half-Life, it could take hours to download everything needed for that level (especially in single-player) on a 56k connection.
Don't wake the Corps and Gov up, not yet. They are busily creating the networks for pervasive access under the guise of education, pay-per-view, egov, and killer app, whatever, dreaming all the time about the mountain of money and taxes they will get for doing it, all the while driving prices down to some sustainance level, to our direct benefit.
The idea is to just make sure the net always stays "open" after they are bored with it; and they will, as it becomes lackluster; there will be a wonderful opportunities for almost anyone who cares.
You know what would really be awful?
If videogames became such a hassle and so expensive that people stopped buying them and started spending time with their families and engaging in physical activity.
The horror.
This pointless sarcasm was brought to you by the Committee that Offers to be Flamed Over and Over (COGFOO).
But seriously, I'm an older man, now, and when I think back on my fondest memories, they don't really include any of the time I spent playing videogames. I remember my joy at learning how to make my own photographs from scratch in a real, actual smelly darkroom, and I fondly remember going to outdoor music festivals and playing the guitar and singing around a campfire in the middle of the night, but for some reason I don't well recall how I felt about getting to the end of MYST, or Marathon, or StarCraft, or finally defeating Shang Tsung on the first SNES version of Mortal Kombat.
Videogames are lots of fun, but believe an old man when he tells you that you are not building a lifetime of happy memories by playing them, even when you're doing it with your friends. I don't want to bore anyone with my theories as to why, but they would include the repetition of it, and the lack of physical engagement. I propose that for every hour spent playing videogames, one spends two hours doing something else. Sleeping and working don't count.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
".. no more rentals from video stores, no used games market, no lending games to friends, less upgradeable computers, pay-as-you-play software subscriptions, and other consumer-unfriendly changes."
All of these sound like changes that affect the PC side of gaming more than anything else. With rumblings of retailers no longer carrying PC games, and weaker overall sales, this doesn't really surprise me. Most PC games aren't that good, with only a couple of excellent games a year. With console games, there are usually an average of a couple of excellent games a month.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Some of you migh remember several years back when Ultima Online came out (which Roxored back then! I blew many hours on that game!) somne folks figured out how to create a open source server that you could connect to using the retail client. What was cool was folks could build out and set up their own world and let other folks connect to it. It was quite cool.
Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
If the game sucks, then that is all you will ever download of it - if the game rules then sure over the coming months you will end up downloading the whole 4.5Gb, but you will have had a lot of hours of entertainment for your money.
This has to be a better alternative than downloading ISO images from your favorite P2P network. Having a decent online delivery system is just what you need to avoid your AUP violations.
There are such things as bandwidth caps for cable. I have a bandwidth cap of 30 gigs/month. (though I do get 380k/sec downloads...). So downloading 5 games six times in one month would by itself go over the bandwidth limit. Of course, I probably wouldn't play that many games, but there are a lot of other things that are downloaded over the internet, and they all add up... This would be just another thing taking a bite out of my download cap, and I much prefer just buying the game (like with Prince of Persia Sands of Time....a great game! I'm a prince of persia fanatic. It's actually the first game that I've really been willing to pay money for in a while)
It seems to me that most people are missing the point. This is not about having physical media or whatever, this is about the value we attach to intellectual property and how we handle revenue that is to be procured from it. Consider: if I were to visit an art gallery and buy a painting I like, I pay the painter indirectly for his/her artistic vision and labour in making something for me to enjoy. The PRODUCT of the vision becomes mine, the vision is the painter's. If we assume software to be an intellectual construct comparable to a painting, the problem with subscription services becomes obvious - you rent a product but never get to own it and may not enjoy it as you please. This would be comparable to the painter coming to your home and removing or changing the painting without your consent. The question is - do we want it to be like that? I for one wouldn't. There seems to be something inherently wrong with having people pay for subscription to a final product without actually ever getting to OWN the product -to be able to do with it as you please- it subverts every notion of property that I have. If I were to do science in this way I would never publish my results; instead, my colleagues would have to subscribe to a results service and they would not be able to use the results unless I were to be paid handsomely. Obviously, that wouldn't work at all and halt all scientific progress. I agree with other posters in judging that making all games available as rentals will be the death of modifications. I think it would be the death of gaming as we know it. IMHO a good reason to go open source all the way. How do other /. readers feel about this?
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
Hmm I guess the mouth breathing moderators couldn't understand the clever pun in this post or he gets an automatic -1 mod because he's AC. Either way that troll mod is bullshit. It's alright Mr Anonymous Coward, there are some people that understand you...
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
It's not a bad idea, except for one (or maybe five) things... the resolution, and the framerate, would have to be far inferior to current available client-side games. The entire game running as a streaming video with good resolution (even 800x600) and a respectable framerate (even 30fps)... the bandwith cost would be way, way too high. Also, the servers would need to be far more powerful (per user) - every gameplay & graphics calculation would have to be done there. I don't see how it would be possible without some ridiculous subscription price.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
They've got you so focused on the carrot that they not only don't have to steal your steak surreptitiously, they've actually gotten you to praise them for the theft.
I hope it turns out to be a mighty tasty carrot
KFG
michael strikes again.
The value per hour of Pay to Play games tends to be higher. Most $50 games tend to provide 20-30 hours of gameplay, even with replays. That means $2.50 to $1.66 per hour of gameplay. Pay-to-play games, however, tend to be ongoing with far more content and diversity in gameplay. Even with a $30 to $50 up front fee, and $13-$15 per month after the first month (Lets just say $50 and $15, which is the coming trend), if a person plays an average of 1 hour a day, after 2 months (60 hours and $65) they're already paying less per hour than a $50 game. Higher cost for a single game, but lower cost per hour, so greater value. Likely this 1 game will be played instead of 2 $50 games ($100 and 40-60 hours of play).
- MaineCoon
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
I think downloading games is great. I'd like to save a tree and lower oil dependence (plastic is made of oil and shipping the physical game package uses up oil, etc).
BUT many services are competing for my limited bandwidth, VoIP (Vonage), online music (Apple Music Store), streaming radio (somafm), BitTorrent. It makes me wonder if this promise is nothing more than a wishful thinking?
Until something is done about increasing bandwidth all these predictions read like a bad Popular Science article on flying cars.
While this is a valid point, for a hardcore gamer like myself I need to ask: How many bills am I going to have to pay every month?
I have upwards of 30 games I currently play in my collection - split between PC, PS2 and XBox. A service like XBox live simplifies things, and may allow a single payment for multiple game developers on consoles but that kind of consolidation will never happen on PC. There won't be a single distribution you pay once a month to cover all your gaming interests, so my credit card bill is going to be pretty long.
Although I suppose companies like Electronics Boutique could segway into turning their services into an electronic distribution hub - even if only to front you payment. Like those companies that consolidate debt.
That is exactly why the doomsayer author of this article is wrong. People SUCH AS THE AUTHOR HIMSELF are willing to shell out $50-$60 for a boxed title with no subscription fee rather than have anything to do with monthly charges and so forth. If the major game companies banded together and all went with subscriptions, someone else could start a game company and market their products as being *SUBSCRIPTION FREE*. The major companies, however, are not likely stupid enough to abandon a large market segment for no reason at all. You don't get to be on top of a market by making poor decisions.
The ONLY way that regular games could ever stop being produced is if hardly anyone were interested in them anymore. It could happen, but if it did, very few people would be complaining about it, and they would sound like OLD CURMUDGEONS.
(see subject)
Isn't that going to screw up the whole giving games for gifts? Are you really going to think Jr. is going to be happy with a passcode/credit for downloading a game (which might take a couple of hours). I mean, they'd enjoy playing it, but that's gonna be a LONG download for anyone nearby...
the very first thing I do when buying a new game is to go out and get cd keygen's no cd patches and everything else needed to disable that useless DRM crap so I can play the damned game.
UT2003 that I have is completely patched against the stupid DRM in it. so I can put the CD's in a safe place and play the game.
Game developers should look at the fact that the best way to avoid piracy is to stop raping the user.
$60.00 - $70.00 for a game is farking insane and asking for it to be cracked and put on kazaa. game programmers do NOT need 6 figure incomes, you dont need catered lunch every day and the people in the art department need to be told that they CAN be replaced with 2 college grads at 1/2 thier pay and they need to STFU and deal.
we recently did this at work. the production staff 2 years ago was all fired eliminating the overpaid diva "artists" and replacing them with college grads that do as good of work for much less and have a better work ethic and attitude.
Games are entertainment, a great game can be made cheaply (frozen bubble anyone?) and the games that are worth the money get purchased like mad.... Frequency for the PS2 is an example.. it still commands $29.00 and is always selling.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Firstly I have done my own analysis of TRSTS Data on the console market. It is very interesting to note that for the period I was examining (last year) 84% of the money was being made by 16% of the titles, which is a very high degree of polarisation for a market. For me this was indicitive that:
- there are a lot of bad games around
- that games are too highly priced for consumers to feel safe making 'impulse' purchases.
The other piece of research that is relevant, was looking at the gaming habits of gamers, and was written at the end of the 90's. There they showed that on average 80% of gamers make it to level 2, and that only 10% of gamers will complete a game.Online delivery has the opportunity to change all of that, as finally we can adopt a pricing scheme which is able to cater more fairly to ALL of the players, and no longer just to the hard-core. The effect of that should be that we are able to get more game players, as more people will be able to purchase at a value they think fair.
There are at least 2 models which can be applied to online delivery, subscription and micro-payment. These are not mutually exclusive, and cater to different sorts of player.
Subscription is very analogous to Pay TV channels. For the most part there would be a catalogue of titles available to play within your subscription each month. This caters to the person who has a given amount of time for video games each month, however allows this player to enjoy a wider variety of titles than traditional delivery. Like in the PayTV realm there is still the option of having special one-offs, which can charge what they want. That's just life.
With micro-payments, then you would only pay for what you actually play, and would be presented with an account at the end of a period. This model caters to the lighter gamer, who probably has other uses for their leisure time. However by offering this, then a distributer is able to significanlty lower the cost of entry, thereby making gaming finanically acceptable to a whole new set of people.
The original author seems to fear change - and automatically assumes that because the pricing model changes he will be worse off. I believe that nothing could be further from the truth. Capitalism protects us as consumers, because if one company starts building in unreasonably high profits, then another company will come along and take away all of their business! The costs of digital distribution are already significantly cheaper than opening up physical shopfronts, and this is only set to get cheaper.
Bringing new gamers in to play would be (and should be) where game's companys are able to increase their profits. Anything that gets more couch potatoes doing something stimulating, and away from the TV is a very good thing.
The article mentions Quake I, II and III. III needed a key, its important to remember why it needed a key. it was not ID restricting you so much as them recorgnising that the must_have_cd_in on QuakeII (which was eventually removed in one of the patches) was more than the customer really was willing to take, and they'd crack it anyway(!). We must also remember ID are also Linux Friends and also Open Source friendly (ok they don't release the source straight away, they license it you see, but it doesn't take them long either). Yes Valve may get restrictive, even EA might, but without an ID game doing it, I don't believe it will be accepted on the PC.
Another major issue, is that the big players seem to have a lot of sway (for obvious reasons) with Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft/etc, enough that new developers really can't get into the market unless you've been making pc games for half a century first. Microsoft is the only one that I've found so far who even has a program for 'the little guy' which is the "Incubator Program", but it's still not easy to get into and you better plan on having the game running as a prototype in 6 months. My biggest frustration is trying to find licensing for my BZFlag Console Edition project. I've sent off a hundred emails to licensed developers hoping to establish a partnership that will get my project on its feet. I'm very frustrated with the manufacturers at the moment, and it seems no wonder why there aren't more games on the market and likewise that costs havent been driven down by more games coming out. There is, and always will be far less games and innovation on gaming console systems unless the manufacturers take a chance on the little guy and someone spots them some hardware. Would it really kill microsoft to give out a few hundred development kit xbox's if they get a chance to draw more products to their platform? They have the law behind them if people break contracts and want to release NDA'd material. There isn't a discernable reason other than peer pressure from licensed developers. If they want innovation, someone needs to help the ComSci major who's in love with his XBox to make the games he dreams of. What are dreams without a canvas to paint them on. Lots of fabulous ideas are lost to the winds and not enough winds of change are blowing.
You just need to look at this from a different angle. Think of it like paying for petrol for your car.
Some things like hammers and screwdrivers, I like to purchase and keep them on the shelf, not rent them. Same thing with my car. I own it. It's paid for. However consumables that I might need I can purchase from any corner supplier, not just Texaco. Single vendor lock-in is a bad thing. A screwdriver that needs a subscription is a bad thing. Not all software needs to be online to be useful. Artificaily tying a subscription to screwdriver software is a bad thing.
Here is a great example of problems caused by a screwdrever needing to phone home. I put together a PC on my coffee table. I hadn't added a modem or lan card yet. To keep to drivers in check I don't stuff in all the hardware all at once. A keyboard and mouse are nice things to start with.
MS had just came out with the optical mouse. (quite a few years ago) I loaded it's driver. Not only did it insist of having a CD key for the driver, but it complained loudly about being unable to find my modem! This I don't need. I imediately gave away the mouse never to use a MS mouse again. Who knows what it would have reported silently to home if it found a lan net connection. There is no reason for a screwdriver (mouse driver) to phone home EVER!
My local LAN games shouldn't be any different. I buy them, I expect to play them with no hastles.
However if I stick in an AOL disk for use with an Online Service, I expect it to phone home and want an account for the online access. It's used to access someone else's provided content for a price.
A LAN game and Tax Preperation Software does not need this. Single vendor lock in is a bad thing. The software should be able to be purchased, not rented and I should be able to play a LAN game using a local server. There is no reason for a LAN game to phone home unless I choose to use the server provided by the manufacture to play someone in Guam. I should pay for service where service is supplied and I choose to use it. (subscription service) Lack of subscription should not break the local functioning of a program. EG a mouse driver or Word Processor that can't phone home shouldn't nag that I haven't registered or quit in 60 days.
Fighting piracy is one thing. Making the product less useful is also a bad business model. Competing is good. Trying to lock-in consumers is a bad business model. Consumers will find and buy the stuff that works with no hastles.
If MS didn't do product activation, do you think Open Office would havd gotten much serious attention?
The truth shall set you free!
First, computer gaming is on a trend AWAY from DRM. Long, long ago, diskette manufacturers screwed with the physical floppy to prevent copying. This caused more problems than the copy protection solved. Look-up solutions in game manuals ("Page 3, paragraph 2, word 4?") have also faded out as people became frustrated with keeping the manuals on hand. Recently, we're even seeing a move away from must-have-CD-in-drive copy protection.
Second, the computer game market is pretty elastic. If games become too expensive (as measured both in dollars and inconvenience), people will not buy them. They aren't like food (where you die of you don't have it), like MS Office (where you can't make money as effectively without it), or even like music (which we are culturally brainwashed to crave). If we don't have video games, we do something else.
Third, there are no central gaming companies secure enough in a monopoly to risk upsetting the market. If MS unilaterally started implementing fascist copy protection, people would turn to Nintendo or Sony. This is not a risk MS is willing to take.
In conclusion, I think it's baloney.
Or, the company could just Open Source the server software when they EOL the game.
Just because it works, doesn't mean it isn't broken.
I was at a toy store today to check out the games.
I was surprised to find many top titles of only 6-12 months ago sitting there discounted to almost nothing. For $10 you could pick up No One Lives Forever 2, a great game. Unreal 2, Splinter Cell are already down to $30, just a few months and they'll be $20 or $15.
A game like Grand Theft Auto 3 was $15 while GTA3-Vice City was $40. Vice City is just the same engine, just with different maps and missions. Games from 2002-2003 are still great to play. Even 2001 games would still look good on common PC's. If you insist on spending $50 on the latest titles, there seems to be more choice than ever.
Why would I pay Valve for connection rights to a server they don't own, don't manage and don't support? Online game servers are almost universally run by individual enthusiasts on their dime. The presence of these servers adds to the value of the game. Companies such as Valve should be paying server operators for connection rights, not the other way around.
I'm sure Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo would experience a bump in sales, at the very least. :)
Good point. Check out the problems MS is haveing with Open Office. How many people are checking it out, not because of price, but because they disagree with product activation. Same thing for Intuit and the Turbo Tax registration. The backlash for these imposed problems is strong.
That's why I have Open Office and an old copy of MS Office on this machine. I won't do the new version and I use OO as a tool to open stuff MS office won't. As it improves, Open Office may replace MS office entirely here as MS moves to to a rental model.
The truth shall set you free!
Once people made millions off of homemade board games that became outrageously popular, and many people tried to emulate the success. Now a hundred years of free market evolution has filtered out only the best board games, but guess what : people are still making millions off of them, and people are still loving games made even before the depression. Even still, if you have a bright idea you can easily enter the market (Think about the very popular new-comer "Cranium")
Look at today's most popular board games: Monopoly and Risk. You could argue that Risk isn't a bad game, but Monopoly certainly is. People don't buy them because they're good; rather, because they achieved critical market share and recognition. Monopoly is a popular present (Bob likes golf, let's buy him the Monopoly Golf edition for his birthday).
Cranium was successful because of the business skills of its creators (who by the way are ex-microsoft employees).
Meanwhile hundreds of games which would be much more fun to play are not known to anybody who doesn't check boardgamegeek.com.
P.S.
www.antimonopoly.com.
I purchased a copy of shadowbane used for $3.00.
Was I dissapointed after I installed it and downloaded 300+ mb of patches that it required a paid monthly membership. Not even a single player mode.
Now it sits in my closet. I never even got to try it out. I guess I ought to sell it to someone for $3.00.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
The only thing these keys can really be used for is preventing people without them from playing on official online servers...
RTFA! The new generation of games from Valve won't run single player without online activation.
Not only that, but I got the "official" word from Comcast that I'm only allowed to download 80-90 GB/month.
Five years ago you couldn't download 80 gig at home. A 5 meg MP3 was a long term commitment. Graph the line.
Among the predictions: no more rentals from video stores, no used games market, no lending games to friends, less upgradeable computers, pay-as-you-play software subscriptions, and other consumer-unfriendly changes.
If these predictions come true, then allow me to add one more: Open Source games take over the market.
In all seriousness, the community needs to write free, high-quality game engines upon which content and online services can be sold. And, of course, "the community" here largely represents companies who want to sell such content and services once the engines are collaboratively developed. Then we just need a non-proprietary console system.
The problem here is that the major names don't use that kind of approach. The charge you the full price of any other comparable game ($50 USD or so) and then charge you for each month after the first, often $12-$15 USD per month. It's that kind of approach that makes consumers wary. $65 for two months of gameplay sounds a lot worse than $50 dollars for two years of gameplay when the average consumer is browsing the aisles of an electronics store.
It's like charging two dollars for lemonade at your lemonade stand. Thirsty people will buy from you, and you will profit from them. But if the price was, say, 75 cents, you get much more money, not to mention customers that will return frequently.
Marketing execs can't stand the thought of "giving" software away by providing a free download for a pay-to-play service. It's much too much like open source. And we can't go encouraging that.
I couldn't find a FAQ on packetnews to see what the heck it was about. What can an "IRC search engine" do for me? Besides, a lot of the people who play video games are minor children, and packetnews's disclaimer excludes minor children from the site.
it's the people who decide things like this.
"The People" so far have not stopped buying Sony, Disney, going to movies, buying CDs that aren't actual CDs (that copy protection crap), or even supporting Microsoft due to the DMCA, MPAA-RIAA actions, or Microsoft's convicted monopolist stand.
On what planet are you on that makes you think "The People" will do as you suggest and stop buying?
None of this would happen if people didn't warez the hell out of every game that was released.
I have been getting all my games/movies/apps/music via the Internet for several years now. If you want to try for yourself just check out www.suprnova.org :-)
How about going to a LAN center and renting time out to play a game? Let the center handle the buying and upgrading the hardware and buying software. You can play a game, find out it sucks and then move onto the next one for only a few dollars.
w .igames.org/
Check these places out:
http://www.lanparty.com/centers/
http://ww
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
The true threat to games of today and tomorrow is the lack of quality in games on the market. As small game developers are swallowed up by the EAs and UBISofts at the same time the production cost of making a game rises vastly meaning fewer and fewer small companies can be successful without major backing from an EA, UBI or Microsoft. Competion won't be completely stifled but innovation will certainly be slowed.
My friend recently purchased an Xbox and went on a binge on aquiring games. I thought I'd jump in with him and help him get some good ones. I spent about 2 hours on the Xbox website purveying all released and announced games. Only one piqued my interest, and its been (wrongly) accused of racial insensativity. Every other game with some potential was part of a series and for the most part, not up to par with the original.
Even the games for PC are having the same issues. Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Counter-strike 2, Starcraft 2, GTA 5 are the only games I am looking forward to and I don't expect them to move the bar all that far. On the MMORPG front there is very little innovation even announced since Shadowbane's dismal showing. Sony's control of the MMORPG market certainly dims the future on this front.
I'm sure a few games will surprise me but I predict a dark ages period in true innovation for the next ten years or maybe even until a happy mix of movies and games can be made, which is a long way off.
The point is, you can rent software if you want.
But.... you have to provide a service! Where there is a service model there is continual annual revenue. Simply locking consumers out is not a service model. It offers nothing to the consumer and Joe StrappedForCash aint gonna buy it. However, if I subscribed to say GAMECO and they gave me all their latest releases as long as I subscribed (like a comic book) then hell yeah I'd pay.
Except if I see no Benefit I won't spend the money. It is a hard lesson to learn and very few companies realise it... Products have to be sold on benefits. You cannot sell a man a horse with 3 legs.
Why would I pay Valve for connection rights to a server they don't own, don't manage and don't support?
Because, as the poster above suggested, you did not pay for the game itself. You just downloaded it at no cost. With such a business model the company will probably operate some severs and license some third parties. The developer has to get paid one way or another. Allowing the hobbyist/fan to run a server only makes sense in the other business model where you do pay for the game up front.
And there are a lot of people like you, my friend (such as myself.) I will not pay for a game that requires activation every time to run it. I want to pay for the game, then own my copy and be able to legitimately use it.
Someone in an earlier post talked about back in the 8 bit days when game companies used to put copy protection on the games. They found out that legitimate customers won't stand for it, and why should we? My ISP goes down from time to time and I don't want to be unable to play my favorite games every time that happens.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
And while *content* is almost invariably locked up behind ClearChannel, RIAA/MPAA, EA, Hollywood, et. all, I think it is only a matter of time before independent content producers begin to gain a foothold. I would cite the rise of the so-called "blogospher" as evidence of this.
You are mistaken. The problem you overlook is that not all bits are of equal value. Blog bits are cheap, they are few in number and they take little talent or time to produce. In contrast a game people would probably like to play will need many bits, take a long time to produce, and require skilled programmers and artists. These bits are much more expensive.
End user software copy protection has worked, you merely misunderstand it. The point of copy protection is not to stop all piracy. It is to make piracy slightly more difficult, non-trivial, so that the average technically challenged person can't do it. The fact that a small population of tech savvy people can as still pirate copy protected software is irrlevant. Without end user copy protection piracy is not small scale as you suggest. I've witnessed this in college bookstores. One semester a required software package had no copy protection and sales were about 10% of the number of people enrolled in the class. The next semester the software package had simple copy protection and sales were about 90%. During the first semester non-tech savvy students tried making a copy and it worked. The next semester they tried and it didn't, so the "friends" reluctantly bought copies. I've seen numeous similar stories posted to gaming sites. "My friend burned a CD but it didn't work so I bought my own copy".
What's next? Some kid's blog that says the sky is falling?
I mean please, this is really sad. How about reporting real news for once and not this crap.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Curmudgeon: "a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man."
Hm. Who would have thought that a site advertising itself as crusty and ill-tempered would have a pessimistic look at the future?
Might have been because you could pirate all the games you wanted back then, and nowadays you can't, so your choices are more limited, and thus you're stuck to buying games that you know you're going to like, which means you also miss out on the golden but obscuries. Dunno, but that's what seems to have happened to me. Then again, you're also older now, and maybe your friends just don't like to spend as much time playing games as they used to. *shrug*
Maybe if gamers quit stealing games, there would be less of a anti-pirating trend and less BUSINESSES GOING BANKRUPT.
As a game developer I'm pretty disappointed that most gamers I know buy less than 10% of their games.
I waited for months for Phantasy Star to come out for the Xbox because of the multiplayer feature (different from online play). When it came out you needed to have an Xbox LIVE account to play...even in single player offline mode!!! Why should I pay money for online service just to have the priviledge to play an offline game that I already purchased? Upon finding this out I packed it up, went to EBgames and traded in for a Cube.
itadakimasu
NONSENSE
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
If someone tried to sell you a new type of car which had to have the oil replaced every day ("to protect you against problems caused by old oil, the car won't start till you replace it"), would you buy one of those?
Strange, isn't that what HP's printers are like these days? Every once in a while, the printer checks the ink cartridges on the expiration date and if they're expired... *BAM* No more prints for you untill you buy new cartridges... HP's own of course, cheap alternative brands are unacceptable...
Everything to protect your expensive printer from the perils of old ink... I even think the HP driver program includes a nice link to buy HP ink online. Isn't it wonderful how the customer is being looked after?
"Hell hath no fury like a hippo with a machine gun."
There will always be people who just give away their games for free anyway hoping to get noticed and make it big some day.
Also, I would gladly play a board game with 3 close friends rather than an online-whatever with 4,000 strangers. I would sooner pay $50 for the former than the latter as well.
Looks like people will have to dig the Atari 2600 out of their basements and play the classics. No CD-KEYs, no content download on demand, etc., just a kitchen butter knife to hook it up to the TV.
/. icon for GAMES topic.
The Atari 2600 joystick is, after all, the
Thank god for America's Army and it's awesome Freeness. No CD Key. No Price Tag. (And don't give me that crap about taxes paying for it. maybe 5 cents per year in my taxes then.) New updates every 3 months or so. Free Servers. You guys can keep your Half Life 2.
OK. First off, I did not RTFA. sue me.
1. Since when were commentaries reliable? I can comment all I want that the world is ending, but it doesn't make it true.
2. Who the hell is "Curmudgeon Gamer"? I've never heard of them before. Perhaps if a well known figure in the industry made the commentary it would have a teeny tiny bit of weight to it, but not from this place.
no comment
I don't think video gamers have much to worry about since the console market is already nearing the PC capabilities(and surpassed it depending on what PC you may have). This trend will continue until consoles are every gamers system I think. I could be wrong but trends tell me otherwise with consoles online, using hard drives. Take a look at Infinium Labs Phantom(http://www.infiniumlabs.com). Pretty good idea as to where the video game market is going. 1) Plasma TV's are awesome. No current PC monitor can really compare size-wise. And the resolutions of the nextgen TVs will be crazy-good. Think about this, alot of people have been buying video cards for their PCs now based on how well it works with HDTV. 2) Console hardware is highly evolved now. You can even write games to the consoles HD to severly lessen load times. 3) There are far more software companies developing games for consoles than PCs. 4) Already the console market is seeing a ton of media push. The Video Game Awards, Xplay on Tech TV is heavy towards the console games, MTV just did a top 20 video games of the year, etc. Rarely do you see PC games marketed on TV, it's almost always consoles. 5) Already we're seeing Massive Multiplayer Online RPGs like EQOA on consoles so subscription based games aren't exactly 'on the horizon' they are already invading the console. Now with those points out of the way, I'd like people to consider that the console market has sorf of an inside agreement between competing companies where no single company can get ahead of the rest with a new system without all of the companies doing it pretty much at the same time. This would lead you to believe that since the PC market doesn't suffer this way that consoles would be far in the dark-ages in technology. Now considering that the console industry has that self-made rule(which is what forced Sega out of the market I believe) and is close to surpassing PCs in terms of capability, what's that tell you? Far more resources are being put into the evolution of gaming on consoles compared to PCs because PCs aren't just for games. That's its downfall. Therefore I believe that video games will evolve based on the current demand of what's most popular. If MMORPGs like EQOA are the current most popular theme going, then companies will milk it and subscription based games will be dominant in that particular industry. However, that could all change on a dime. Right now there are over 100 MMO based games being developed for the PC because that's where the money is. Whether or not the console industry is willing to take those risks(read: MMO is a very risky genre of game - out of those 100+ being developed few will see huge profits, some wont see any) has yet to be seen. That's another discussion in itself, though. I think the console will replace the PC for gaming altogether. That's just my prediction though. With that said, any 'worries' on console gamers is probably just speculation(much like I'm doing now). All in all it's like trying to say that PC gamers will have to worry about this and that in a perfect world where the resources that are being put into console gaming are in the PC gaming market. PC gaming wont completely die out, at least not anytime soon, but I truely believe it's inevitable. That or consoles will become our PCs. To say that there's a bleak future for video game customers is rediculous.
I take it a step further.
"Friends" who would buy into this aren't worth spending my time with.
Family who buy into this are to be ignored until they grow a brain and ADMIT HOW STUPID THEY WERE for lending any legitamcy to these needless restrictions.
I wouldn't be happy playing with anyone who doesn't feel the way I do.
If someone wants to do something with me so bad then they're going to have to do things with me that don't involve this crap EVER!
If they have a problem with that WHO CARES.
I OBVIOUSLY DON'T
Who would want to spend time playing one of these games with me?(Retorical) Gee. I'm glad were on the same page >=)
Not to play.
I could have fun with HoMM3 alone to the end of my days, btw.
ET couldn't and he was far more advanced than us
This is just crazy... server-based game lobbies, like MS's "Zone" and Blizzard's BattleNet are great!
I started playing online games with Quake back in the day. A 3rd party client was needed to just find games going on, and it was a pretty clunky interface to join a game.
Playing Age Of Empires 1 and 2 online was awesome, the Zone was an ideal place to meet up with players, it had a rating system if you were into that, or you could play in "unrated" rooms too. BattleNet is the same thing basically, both work very well.
Not to mention that you can set up "private" rooms that need a password for entry in every lobby environment I have seen, so that makes it easy to set up games with friends. I agree that sometimes there can be issues setting up games or starting them, but most of the time they are easily resolved by just trying again. Most of these problems that I have experienced are due to bad internet connections (ie. dialup) but that problem is largely eliminated.
Your complaints make no sense, basically. What restrictions are you under, by using an online lobby to set up games? It's easy to use, and largely hassle free (as long as you actually own the game, which you should). If you don't want to "watch people type in profanity and hate speech", you set up a private room, and just tell your friends to meet you there.
If anything, gaming online is faster and easier than ever before. I have no idea why you are so bent out of shape over it...
Mark
Well said! Common sense seems to disappear when people try to deal with piracy (or terrorism).
I would also challenge your theory of lots of good games. One of the best selling systems of all time : The Atari 2600 - had few if any GOOD or GREAT games - with the majority being rushed - most games from bandwagoners just copied code, made something flash on the screen and called it a game.
This is the same thing that happens in the PC World that doesn't really happen with Macs. Most of the software out on the PC is just poorly written garbage. Most Mac software has careful and optimized code.
The playstation (by my own estimate) has about 50 games that are original in both concept and design> Aren't there close to 3500 titles?
There ARE studios out there pushing the envelope with new technology - such as Eye Toy and even Konami with Dance Dance Revolution. There are games that are to come to market that interact with your blood sugar, your mood, your heart rate, etc.
Most of the innovation today comes from the hardware used to interact with the game, rather than the software it self. This is why light gun games were so popular and continue to be some of the only games still produced. Notice at your next arcade/putt putt/or movie visit - all the games aren't original in concept - rather original in the hardware design - light guns/skis and poles/snowmobiles/jet skis, paddles, bicycles, etc.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Consider that id eventually opened the source of both Doom and Quake, and that originally these two games were their flagship moneymakers. In doing so, in my mind id proved three things:- (a) That they'd already made more money than they could need or know what to do with, (b) That once they had established their livelihoods, that they wished to contribute to the future of first-person gaming, and (c) That although earning a living was important to them, (we all need to eat and pay the bills) finding a means of expression for their phenomonal levels of intelligence and creativity, contributing a form of entertainment to the world, and enjoying themselves in the process was the primary motivation in persuing their enterprise.
We need to remember that perhaps unlike the RIAA or MPAA, the gaming industry is populated by some of the most intelligent, lucid, and conscious human beings alive today. Active copy protection is in place for the first 2-3 years of a game, because yes, games do take time and money to make, (if you know anything about the industry, you'll know it's typically large amounts of both) and the people involved want to get something back for their efforts. After that time however (typically after a game hits "platinum" status sales wise) and it is assumed that no more income can be reasonably expected from the title, then in most cases the copy protection is removed, and in some instances the source of the game itself is opened, as we have seen. The copy protection of both the original Unreal Tournament and Half-Life was removed in later patches.
It might be true that Microsoft are planning on making their own products more closed and crippled, but in looking at this, you need to look at the history of individual companies. Fascist behaviour is par for the course in Microsoft's case in particular, but just because that's the norm for their behaviour, that doesn't mean it's that way for everybody.
I can't emphasise enough that (at least in my opinion) id and Epic represent two of the most intellectually and creatively gifted groups of human beings that I've ever heard of. The RIAA might be unreasoning, jackbooted idiots, but these two companies aren't, and that being the case they know that binding up the mod scene and doing other such things would only be shooting themselves in the foot. After all, let us not forget that Steven Polge, Epic's own AI programmer, was initially recognised due to a modification he made for the first Quake game, the Reaper Bot. The gaming industry trying to kill modding would be a case of them biting the hand that feeds them, and I believe they would be highly conscious of that fact.
Don't have a cow.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Has anybody seen a multiplayer game where the characters can't be sorted into Sprite, Warroir , Wizard , Savage and Knight and the game played differently acording to which character you used? example game set in a castle the Sprite character starts in one of the towers the Knight starts at the Front door. The Sprite needs to escape the castle. The Knight needs to find the Sprite. The Sprite game is all hide and evade and the knight is Hack and Slash (some puzzle stuff). Golden Path would be both meet in the middle. So anybody want to do the Code?
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
I guess I'll just have to stick with my N64. Heck, get ROM of my favorite games and an emulator, and I can continue playing after the system dies for whatever reason. With 64bit CPU's nowadays, N64 ROMS may now be playable on regular computers.
(\(\
(=_=) Bani!
(")")
Steam better not become the type of software needed for gaming for now on...ever tried getting it running in linux?
What worries me the most is turning every game company into a novell network. I can't imagine having to rely on a centralized point of service/servers for my games to be running. That's putting gamers on a leash.
Look at it this way folks. The average joe plays a computer game for what... 3-4 months? If they have to pay say 10 bucks a month to play, they will still end up paying only 40 dollars compared to the 80 they have to pay when they buy a CD in the store (These prices are in Canadian Dollars, btw). And there is a lot more average joe than hardcore games out there. Another aspect of this is that it limits piracy. So the end user is still pretty well off. If you on the other hand are one of the hardcore types who keeps and plays their games for a long time, I'm pretty sure you'll find a way around the system. I mean come on, every security measure that software companies came out with, someone cracked. From hardware CD protection, to CD keys that check against databases, etc. And if you wont do it, Deviance, Fairlight, or Razor 1911 will.
games are more swapable then ever before...
Rentals probably will start dying tho...
BTW, i am fully appreciative of free gaming, but Steam has even got me pretty frustrated. it is *incredibly* buggy.
Personally, either I'll pay to purchase a physical copy of the game, OR I'll pay a subscription fee to play it purely online, but NEVER both.
Take EverQuest as an example:
I paid WAY too much for what I got, and then to be bent over a table and have my wallet ripped from me in order for me to be allowed to play it at all? No thanks, my money is better spent elsewhere.
Now, take Total Annihilation.
I bought the physical media for a decent price, and even after downloading the patches / updates / mods / etc, can (an do) still play it YEARS later without paying another penny for the "priveledge".
So, which is the better value?
EverQuest - the game I spent $50 to get, then was raped another $15 in order to play it before I could figure out I didn't like it, and wasn't able to return (oh look, an open software box? We'll exchange it for another copy, but All Your Cash Belongs To Us!)... It's stat unused and unopened in the back of a "Utter Crap!" box of similar bits of gaming fiasco, doing nothing but gathering dust & disgust.
Or Total Annihilation, which I spent $50 on *once*, and have played in single player, multi-player, and at LAN parties so many times I'd rate it one of the best games I've ever played...
Why? Because it's had INFINITELY more play-value than EQ, and a WHOLE lot more playability!
I love MMORPG's -having grown up on the Commodore 64 "Gold Box" AD&D series from SSI, it's a natural "step up"- but there is no WAY you can convince me that I have to both pay to get the game, and then pay again, on a monthly basis, in order to continue to play the game (or, as in the case of EQ, even play it at all!). One or the other, but not both. A one time $50 payment for a game that's been played for years, or $50 to buy + $15 to play it once & stuff it angrily in the closet to die?
Hummmmm... lemme think....
That's what Microsoft says about Windows XP, too.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...Well, maybe I should qualify that.
If you're like me, and still have your old consols (my Atari 2600 is still up and running) you'll be able to play that NES game for a while.
The overhead for keeping old PC's and operating systems around to play old computer games is a lot more hassle. Some games will continue to work, some won't. VMWare helps in this regard, but not completely (mostly due to slow video.)
If games move to a model where you have to contact the company to install (or even to play) the software, you have no recourse should the company decide to cut you off or dissapear.
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
This isn't exactly true. I need to open more ports now to use these online services. Each game uses so many, no off-the-shelf router can store their configs all at once. A lot of the people don't get it right, and all time spent starting a game is lost when one person can't join. When the server is down, you can't play, because they don't allow you to direct-IP anymore. What are you are talking about is match-making, which is a good service if you don't mind playing against a group of children who disconnect or cheat at an alarming rate. And if you don't mind installing Microsoft's Active-X elements for the Zone. But I am an adult who has adult friends who just want to play each other without hanging out in silly lobbies. Does that make sense?
> Assuming that the valid-key-generating hash is not shipped as part of the product, why would hackers crack the hundred-gazillions hash of which some work rather than the tens-of-millions hash which the company used to generate actual valid keys?
Because the hash the company uses is the hundred-gazillions hash. See, it works on two levels. The company creates a key generator that can make a hundred gazillion keys. It runs it one hundred million times, and actually creates a hundred million keys out of the possible hundred gazillion. It then uses only those hundred million for valid keys. So, when the hacker breaks the hash, he gets a hundred gazillion key generator, and generates a key. However, if the hacker's one-in-hundred-gazillion key doesn't match one of the hundred million actual keys the comapny generated, then the company rejects it as a hacked key. That means that even if the hash is broken, someone has only a hundred-million per hundred-gazillion chance of generating a vaild key.
Virg