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Is the Gaming Industry Moving Online Too Fast?

Posted by Soulskill on from the fast-enough-to-stumble-now-and-then dept.

RyanDJ writes with his reaction to the Sony PSN outage, wondering if our rush to online services and digital distribution for games is a bit too enthusiastic. "I love technology, I just want it to slow down. I know I sound like an angry old 'get off my lawn' kind of guy right now, but until my 8-bit Nintendo dies from plastic corrosion and age, it will continue to play any game I find just as it was supposed to. Online dedicated games, one day, will lose servers. System crashes, such as the Sony problem, will cause interruptions. I feel if we don't slow down, stabilize the current technology and ensure its safety, find ways to guarantee that items bought are permanently owned even without a physical copy, we might see a company such as Nintendo saying that online isn't worth it!"

5 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. 8-bit Nintendo is probably not the best example by rolfwind · · Score: 5, Funny

    I blew that thing so much trying to get it to work (often failing), I feel like a cheap whore now just thinking about it.

    That was the only game system that failed on me.

    1. Re:8-bit Nintendo is probably not the best example by SpiralSpirit · · Score: 5, Informative

      ...all you had to do to get it working again was to take a cotton swab with high purity rubbing alcohol and clean the contacts of the games and the system. Mine still works.

  2. Uninformed Rant, or Sony Apologist? by Adambomb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Honestly, this is ridiculous. I don't know if the submitter is some sort of apologist or just really lacking in the history of online gaming but online gaming and online game distribution has been around for about 25 years now give or take, and thats just one example. This would be about EXACTLY as old as the revered plastic grey box in question, give or take a couple if you were living in japan or not.

    Different networks and system have been more secure than others this whole time, and the real question is "Why would some companies risk security in the name lower maintenance costs given the number of terrible consequences these days". The PSN outage and data leak raises questions about Sony and their decision making processes, not about the state of digital distribution and online gaming in general.

    --
    Ice Cream has no bones.
  3. Yer about five years late by lanner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Former gaming industry guy here, who worked in the online (MMO) space for games (mostly PC).

    It's incompetence. That's all. The gaming industry is full of excited youthful noobs who are willing to work 50-60-or-more hour workweeks in exchange for working "in a cool industry" and occasionally getting a free tee shirt or some other crap.

    The "online" portion of most game shops is seen as sort of like support. In fact, I've seen several places (some of them failed) where the online management (sysadmins, networking guys, etc) was actually manged by the online support person -- the same person responsible for level-1 customer support goons.

    Since it's not programming, not art, not design, and not the "core" part of making the game, it's just something necessary sucking money away from the people who really deserve it, so it gets minimal attention.

    That's all.

  4. Dedicated servers are a problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Get rid of this dedicated official server bullshit that we have to deal with, it gives me a headache when we all live within a block from each other in Australia but suddenly get shunted onto a US East server with 400+ pings. I understand why you would have to do it for something like an MMO, but a two or four player game? Ugh. Hamachi shouldn't be a requirement when you want to play games with brosefs without dealing with network shenanigans