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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.
"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.)
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!
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).
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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'
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 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...
(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!"
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.
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.'"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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).
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.
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!