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originally posted in:Comet
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Edited by VIC:
2/7/2013 3:08:03 AM
13
Gamer-Rage (The DRM Edition)
[b]tl;dr at the bottom[/b]
Today was a fantastic day to internet. Aside from National Signing Day being today (this is sports related for those of you who are comfortable under your non-sports rock), the internet burned with a bright white-hot rage as rumors about Microsoft's upcoming console shook them to the core. My Facebook and Twitter feeds were full of rage-filled entertaining posts; the same goes for game-related message boards.
And who can blame them? I'm not a fan of "online only" play or DRMs...or any of that stuff, either but what bothers me most is that I see people threaten to abandon console gaming and "to/stick with Steam."
Regardless of your opinions on Steam (I think it's a great service) or your opinion on Console vs PC gaming [url=http://i.imgur.com/Ytl7W.jpg](inb4 PC Master Race)[/url], doesn't this threat seem a little asinine? As far as I understand it, Steam uses DRMs to prevent the sale of secondhand games and it ties any content purchased to the purchaser's account. As far as I understand the rumors that circulated today - and the ones surrounding Sony's next console, that we heard about a few weeks ago - this would mean that console games would adopt a similar approach. I've seen the argument that "MS/Sony wouldn't have sales the way that Steam does." That's possible but unless anyone here is a fortune teller, nobody knows for sure.
[I](And if you are a fortune teller, please PM me next week's winning lottery numbers!)[/I]
I'm not knocking Steam and I';m not knocking those who choose PC gaming over consoles. This is a legitimate question that I have: [b]what's the difference? [I]Why is this threat an actual thing?[/I][/b]
Oh yeah, someone mentioned on Twitter earlier that the rumor was busted. This is the first opportunity I've had to sit at a computer since I read about those rumors but this discussion still has merit whether or not the rumor was busted, as it's a discussion that we will likely have several times over in the future.
[quote]tl;dr ([url=http://www.doesoustillsuck.com]per Butane123's request[/url]): Why do people protest DRMs by threatening to switch to a service that also uses DRMs?[/quote]
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Edited by Butane: 2/7/2013 3:57:17 AMFrom what I can see, most people see that there needs to be some give and take. With the rumored changes, most people only see Microsoft as taking away features from them without them adding anything that makes it worth it. I'm mostly worried about there being no used games. Not specifically because they won't exist anymore, but I feel they keep the prices of games in check. If you take out those used games, the publishers have no incentive to drop the price of their games after a few months with deals and sales. I'm not saying they won't still, but without that added competition, there is less incentive to because they were trying to persuade customers to buy their version than the used one where no revenue would go to them. Can't blame them honestly, but as a consumer, it has me worried since I rely on those sales to buy games I have a passing interest in. If they quit, well I wouldn't be buying them. Secondly, with the MS applying Steam style sales, I'm also worried about that actually being possible because they have a precedence of not doing that on the 360. Several games that were released on XBLA years ago have retained the same price with only week (or day) long sales that reduce the price. Some are cheaper, and I'm not saying the don't ever drop the price, but it seems like an incredibly slow process. Then look at those Steam sales, some of them are so crazy low that it becomes an involuntary reaction with people buying them. Again, MS could do it, but it would take more than "We promise" to convince me. The always on DRM doesn't bother me nearly as much aside from the fact that we know we've always had those times where our connection is out, or we get logged off randomly. That would get annoying, fast, if it impacts gameplay. MS also needs to make sure that we can transfer the those DRM rights between profiles fairly easily. You know I had to change gamertags. Now imagine if I completely lost all privileges to the games I physically bought just because I had a problem that required me to create a new profile.
