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[Bittercup]

I don't know why people are comparing Steam to this.

Since the NES/Mastersystem I've been able to rent games for each generation of console up until current gen.

PC has had DRM and cdkeys for a long long time and historically you've never been able to rent or lend PC games that have keys and Steam is just an extension of this.

That's not correct. While PC games used CD keys for a long time before, those keys were only checked during the installation and only offline therefore weren't used up and you could lend the game to a friend without any problems or even rent it from stores. When I was young lending PC games between friends was very common and at least in my country video rental shop usually had PC and console games for rental as well.
That games have to be activated online and tied to an account is still a relatively new thing and only happened to be the standard ~ 3-4 years ago. For example Fallout 3, the first Assassin's Creed or Sims 3 were still without any online activation but around that time it got more and more common for games to use some kind of DRM-system.

 

[GamerJM]

They're absolutely right. We need more people in the industry speaking about how this affects consumer rights and our ability to play games in the future.

 

[Fox_Mulder]

On the other side Polygon kisses Microsoft ass. Why am I not surprised?

 

[Vashetti]

When will we know the stance of Sony on all this?

E3?

Or later than that.

 

[brandonh83]

MS can thank Adam Orth that he softened some of the initial backlash. Not nearly enough though.

Can you imagine... if we had no warning? Damn, that would have been interesting.

 

[maquiladora]

Why is no one bashing Steam, they are doing the same thing for years.

- Because Steam is what it has always been.

- This is making restrictive, anti-consumer changes to how console gaming has always been since its inception.

Can you imagine... if we had no warning? Damn, that would have been interesting.

According to some, the only reason the online check in now 24 hours and not much more regular is because of the Adam Orth backblash. That's how out of touch MS are.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

Harrison just needs to learn to shut his trap. How the fuck he has a job in PR, let alone the CV he has, is beyond me.

indeed. He must have some crazy dirt on people. That's the only thing that makes sense...

You mean it wasnt shit when they released a console with a failure rate that would make N Korea blush?

RROD was a big issue no-one can deny that, but put that aside for a moment, the early years of the 360 were fantastic and it was mostly led by Allard and Moore.

 

[Shadders]

Refreshingly brave journalism from Eurogamer and Tom Bramwell. More of this please.

 

[Jill Sandwich]

They don't mince words.


Also, latest junior batch is completely shit.

I'd like to see the email addresses of these juniors if you know what I mean

 

[Windu]

If the xbox was digital only, would people be mad still about no used games etc?

 

[dragonelite]

MS can thank Adam Orth that he softened some of the initial backlash. Not nearly enough though.

He got fired for their sins.

 

[Bikram]

If Sony also does something similar. It's 3DS, Vita, Wii U and PC for me. EA and Co and suck it. But something tells me they won't go so far *fingers crossed

 

[tusken77]

MS can thank Adam Orth that he softened some of the initial backlash. Not nearly enough though.

I think Orth has made the backlash worse. We've seen MS watch the huge negative reaction to that debacle and they proceeded with their plans anyway. That will make people ever angrier.

 

[sammex]

Great article by eurogamer.

Microsoft need to know this unacceptable.

 

[Alpende]

Eurogamer might be the voice we need. But, MS won't listen.

 

[rigel137]

.

Edit:

And to all Steam and iTunes and Google Play comparisons.
How often do you buy $60 games on those platforms?

If MS sells the next Halo for $9.99 then of course this is fine and dandy.

So this is come down to at what price the publishers set the game to be, not if the game it self can be traded or not?
If XBOX ONE game can be bought at 20 USD like STEAM, would it be receives the same backlash?

 

[TheLegendOfMart]

That's not correct. While PC games used CD keys for a long time before, those keys were only checked during the installation and only offline therefore weren't used up and you could lend the game to a friend without any problems or even rent it from stores. When I was young lending PC games between friends was very common and at least in my country video rental shop usually had PC and console games for rental as well.
That games have to be activated online and tied to an account is still a relatively new thing and only happened to be the standard ~ 3-4 years ago. For example Fallout 3, the first Assassin's Creed or Sims 3 were still without any online activation but around that time it got more and more common for games to use some kind of DRM-system.

It's not incorrect at all. No one is going to buy a used PC game that had a cdkey associated with it as the person who sold it could continue to use it.

The same reason why shops never rented PC Games in the history of PC Games.

I've been renting games since early 90s for consoles, now all of a sudden I can't because of some arbitrary lockdown.

 

[strata8]

I'm very uncomfortable with the thought that the availability of games rests entirely on the goodwill of some companies. I regularly play games that are more than a decade old. What happens to this generation's XBox games when Microsoft decides keeping up their servers is no longer cost-effective, and pulls the plug? One can only guess.

Yeah, I can guess. Microsoft releases a patch that disables the DRM, allowing games to be played without activation. Just like Valve has said they will do with Steam.

Do you really think they'd effectively brick millions of consoles just because the servers are "no longer cost-effective"?

 

[8bit]

Do you really think they'd effectively brick millions of consoles just because the servers are "no longer cost-effective"?

Yes.

 

[DangerMouse]

I'm very uncomfortable with the thought that the availability of games rests entirely on the goodwill of some companies. I regularly play games that are more than a decade old. What happens to this generation's XBox games when Microsoft decides keeping up their servers is no longer cost-effective, and pulls the plug? One can only guess.

Completely agree with this worry. I still intend to play some PS1 and Dreamcast JRPG games from time to time, and both of those systems are at/over 2 generations old now, why would I believe that a check-in plug wouldn't be pulled on systems that old, let alone games that relatively niche.

Edit:

Yeah, I can guess. Microsoft releases a patch that disables the DRM, allowing games to be played without activation. Just like Valve has said they will do with Steam.

I suppose they could that, but I'd also have to believe they'd do it system wide and not game-by-game so as to not leave out any niche games that bigger guys tend to not care about.

 

[mclem]

Discs are only used to install and then license games and do not imply ownership.

I actually *do* support this, but it needs to be in conjunction with the ability for unrestricted transfer of licenses.

 

[yamo]

How about they just subsidize the digital downloads heavily. Then no one would care about the physical discs and they could just skip all DRM on physical media without risk of losing money on used games.

But they won't subsidize digital media cause they are fucking greedy!

 

[BanGy.nz]

Console wars batch. A lot of them won't make it.

I never made the connection, that explains a lot.

Fantastic piece, European press have been amazing during this DRM none sense.

 

[JonathanPower]

Yes, yes it does. You can go into stores and buy Steamworks games that only activate once on a Steam account. Half-Life 2 had this and now hundreds of other games do too and MS is even giving the option of trading games, something you can't do with these Steamworks enabled discs. It was the exact same reason I didn't buy into Steam, until:

There's one big difference, Steam is a PC platform and thus you know it's always going to be here. However, Xbox ONE is not always going to be supported, at some point in time a new console will be released, and MS will shut down all the support to the previous model, like they did with the original Xbox. So, what will happen then? If the servers autenticating your games are not working anymore, yor console won't play games and will become useless. So it's really like a rent, as the Eurogamer article says.

 

[strata8]

Yes.

Bullshit. You know as well as I do that there's no reason for them to do that.

 

[Terbinator]

When will we know the stance of Sony on all this?

One of the GameStop reps said they had both on-board in regards to resales after the Xbone reveal, so i'd say Sony's stance certainly won't be buy and trade as you like, just probably not as bad as MS' stance.

 

[8bit]

Bullshit. You know as well as I do that there's no reason for them to do that.

There's no reason for them to go the extra mile and unhook the DRM in the background either, nor is likely to be it a magic switch considering the playing up of the cloud components of this console. When Xbox One is dead, all of the games will be dead.

 

[Windom Earle]

I think Orth has made the backlash worse. We've seen MS watch the huge negative reaction to that debacle and they proceeded with their plans anyway. That will make people ever angrier.

According to some, the only reason the online check in now 24 hours and not much more regular is because of the Adam Orth backblash. That's how out of touch MS are.

It would be interesting to get to the bottom of this, but we'll probably never know.

 

[RobotRocker]

Good article, and ballsy to do so just before you jet out to E3 to meet these people. But at the same time, it's somewhat of a Baity "We're on your side! Honest!" article as there is plenty of lead up to look into onto what lead Microsoft (And likely Sony) onto their decisions and why customers were OK with it till now such as the use of CD Keys and Master Servers for Quake 3 being early versions of DRM, the rejection of the Fairplay Campaign for cheaper game pricing (To the point where a 3rd campaign planned to change the industry view of "Customers = Criminals", the growing use of DRM and making the public aware of it was not feasible due to the sheer amount of abuse they got from the public over the 1st campaign on cheaper games) and Online passes.

There's questions to be asked on "What makes Microsoft and the wider industry think that this is possible and they can get away with it?" and why now customers are annoyed when some of the policies Microsoft are using were used by publishers as far back as 14 years ago. There's a historic element to it that's not exactly being explored yet and it's worrying because the customer is king mantra is starting to worryingly look like the king the customer resembles is Ozymandias.

 

[the_batman]

shooting yourself in the foot has never been this drawn out and agonizingly funny.

I thought Kotaku's opinion piece was good as well.

http://kotaku.com/video-game-companies-arent-letting-us-do-anything-511789152

i thought it was against the rules to link to Kotaku, at least it should be.

 

[Ghost]

This is an interesting topic for debate, but I do think it is that, a debate, it's "OMG WE'RE GETTING SCREWED" is over simplifying massively.

There is no doubt game ownership has changed, when Games started they were on tapes or carts or disks, it was like selling a painting or a movie, everything that game was ever going to be existed on that medium. So paying a price for the medium and taking ownership made perfect sense.

Games aren't released any more, they 'go live' that's more than just a buzz word, they require servers, support staff, new content. When you have constant costs like that is it really fair to expect creators/publishers to be willing to sell you a life time pass for $60 that you can pass off to someone else once you're done? Maybe fair isn't the right word but it definitely seems like a bad business model.

 

[jdforge]

The thought of paying for a console game that turns out a turd and I can't get rid of it reminds me of how things were back in the day.

It also meant that I only bought games that I was 110% sure that I would enjoy.

This is going to have a very bad effect on getting people to try out new genres, new IP's and anything that reviews below a near perfect score.

But I won't be supporting MS or any publisher that forces this shit on me.

 

[War Peaceman]

Last time they shipped a console that didn't work by accident. Here's one that doesn't work on purpose

The article is very good and spot on. Except for this point - the RROD was a known factor when they shipped the console (a fact we have come to discover), not an accident.

 

[Bittercup]

It's not incorrect at all. No one is going to buy a used PC game that had a cdkey associated with it as the person who sold it could continue to use it.

The same reason why shops never rented PC Games in the history of PC Games.

I've been renting games since early 90s for consoles, now all of a sudden I can't because of some arbitrary lockdown.

It's certainly different from country to country but no, it's still incorrect.
CD keys weren't associated with anyone as there was no online activation involved and you needed the dics to play the game so you couldn't continue to use the game if you sold it. There was absolutely no problem to sell games, trade them, rent them, lend them to friends etc
And I rented a lot of PC games when my none of my friends had the game. It's simply not true, that you never could rent PC games.

 

[Angel Abaddon]

so i can sell and lend games bought on steam? so actually i dont know. when games on PC started having DRM, online checks, CD key issues i turned to console gaming since buying download only was never an option

But all of those happened long before Download only was the only option. PC gaming has had DRM checks and absolutely no resale options for at least 15-20 years now (in the UK at least), and long before digital distribution was a consideration. Before this we had the days of CD Keys, the various iterations of SecureROM, Starforce (ick) and the like. Steam was a FAR better option than any of those. And, as people have said, Valve offset the negatives by constantly building the platform free of charge and being able to offer games at a massive reduction compared to console.

And yes, this is repeating what others have said in the thread, but hopefully repeating it will mean it'll get through to people eventually.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

blah blah moan moan, Steam? oh wait, thats fine, but XO isnt, blah blah moan moan

come on people, PC gamers accepted this fate for gaming by buying into Steam, thus the rest of gaming is now falling into line.

Oh for fuck sake

 

[Famassu]

Why is no one bashing Steam, they are doing the same thing for years.

Digital =! Physical.

+ prices are actually decent and there's proper b/w compatibility, you won't be playing & nostalging Halo 8 15 years from now.

 

[CosmicGroinPull]

Collectors will still be able to buy Xbox One games on disc, of course, and we may line them up happily on our shelves so that our friends and families can admire our dedication and taste forever more. But under Microsoft's new rules, we are no longer building a collection of games - we are building a collection of loans that may be recalled from us at any time, leaving us with nothing but distant memories.

Ouch. I enjoy looking at my game collection lined up nicely in my rows of shelves. Reading this hurts.

 

[maquiladora]

Metro (UK) : Xbox One and the corporate war against consumers

 

[strata8]

Digital =! Physical.

+ prices are actually decent and there's proper b/w compatibility.

Steam games are sold physically as well.

 

[ReaperXL7]

This is an interesting topic for debate, but I do think it is that, a debate, it's "OMG WE'RE GETTING SCREWED" is over simplifying massively.

There is no doubt game ownership has changed, when Games started they were on tapes or carts or disks, it was like selling a painting or a movie, everything that game was ever going to be existed on that medium. So paying a price for the medium and taking ownership made perfect sense.

Games aren't released any more, they 'go live' that's more than just a buzz word, they require servers, support staff, new content. When you have constant costs like that is it really fair to expect creators/publishers to be willing to sell you a life time pass for $60 that you can pass off to someone else once you're done? Maybe fair isn't the right word but it definitely seems like a bad business model.

umm Ni No Kuni requires no servers....neither does Darksiders, or Castlevania, or Metal Gear Solid, or any of a massive amount of games still released on a regular basis. Selling DLC does not entitle publishers to double dipping from the second handmarket.

 

[Scherzo]

umm Ni No Kuni requires no servers....neither does Darksiders, or Castlevania, or Metal Gear Solid, or any of a massive amount of games still released on a regular basis. Selling DLC does not entitle publishers to double dipping from the second handmarket.

Well, honestly, I think its somewhat reasonable for them to want a cut because they basically lose potential sales with every used game purchase. MS's setup just takes it way too far.

 

[Eusis]

If Sony also does something similar. It's 3DS, Vita, Wii U and PC for me. EA and Co and suck it. But something tells me they won't go so far *fingers crossed

Admittedly thinking about it Vita NOT doing it is reassuring... especially because it'd be so damn easy. Just require making an account to use the system - no big deal on a handheld, at worst you gotta crash at a Starbucks for a few minutes - and then each cart will register your account as the "legitimate owner" and anyone else has to pay a small fee to be able to use that on their system too, thus either serving to eliminate or at least downplay used games, and on a cart this would cost basically nothing. But they didn't do that, so while inconsistency's possible they really may not want to do this, or at least would've wanted to go the route I highlighted but only on PS4.

 

[Vagabundo]

One of the big differences between Steam and XBoner is that Steam is on an open platform with many competitors. There is many ways to get games on PC that don't involve Steam. You may not get the game you want, but you'll certainly be spoilt for choice.

XBoner is a locked down platform. Open that up to competitors with no rules and I'll be behind XBboner 100%.

 

[Mael]

Metro (UK) : Xbox One and the corporate war against consumers

Holy shit if even the mainstream begins to take it up they're beyond screwed.

 

[Dragon1893]

Was just reading that. Kudos to Eurogamer for publishing that piece.

 

[Famassu]

Steam games are sold physically as well.

Way to miss the point.

 

[KingSnake]

According to some, the only reason the online check in now 24 hours and not much more regular is because of the Adam Orth backblash. That's how out of touch MS are.

Well, if you read between the lines it actually checks online every hour (to verify/block the friends visiting you) but blocks the games for the owner/primary accounts just after 24 hours.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

This is an amazingly well-written piece, which is getting linked on my Facebook.

 

[Acorn]

61 It should be added that, from an economic point of view, the sale of a computer program on CD-ROM or DVD and the sale of a program by downloading from the internet are similar. The on-line transmission method is the functional equivalent of the supply of a material medium. Interpreting Article 4(2) of Directive 2009/24 in the light of the principle of equal treatment confirms that the exhaustion of the distribution right under that provision takes effect after the first sale in the European Union of a copy of a computer program by the copyright holder or with his consent, regardless of whether the sale relates to a tangible or an intangible copy of the program.

A snippet of the European court ruling against Oracle and establishing that software in any medium is subject to existing physical rights