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[Faust]

Honest question, don't you think y'all are an extreme minority of an already niche subsection of enthusiast videogame players? If I would look at the entire demographic of "gamers", behaviour as you describe just seem like outliers.

I can speak only anecdotally, but I don’t believe so. It is certainly smaller than, say, people who only buy and play the newest games - but even younger teens and adults I know and work with go out of their way to play older games and older versions of games.

There is a reason why we have so many clamoring for and excited about games such as GoldenEye for the N64 being ported or remastered and not the remake from the Wii era. There is a good market for them.

But this is also a bit of a derail to what the thread is really about: is always online a good idea and are people over exaggerating the issues of it.

 

[Flutta]

Hope your internet connection goes out for a week OP

 

[TwiztidElf]

Deal with it.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Honest question, don't you think y'all are an extreme minority of an already niche subsection of enthusiast videogame players? If I would look at the entire demographic of "gamers", behaviour as you describe just seem like outliers.

Go on steamdb and you'll see some good 700-1000 players playing Baldurs Gate 1&2 daily. And thats just the steam version, as there's still the people who have the original discs or on GOG.
Heck, L4D2 still gets around 30 000 daily players, which is higher than many more modern 4 player coop games like Borderlands 2 or 3.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Go on steamdb and you'll see some good 700-1000 players playing Baldurs Gate 1&2 daily. And thats just the steam version, as there's still the people who have the original discs or on GOG.
Heck, L4D2 still gets around 30 000 daily players, which is higher than many more modern 4 player coop games like Borderlands 2 or 3.

...those are both niche though, I mean there's still people playing street fighter 2, but it's nothing compared to SF5 or even SF4; you think those 30k l4d2 players wouldn't mostly move to a newly announced l4d3, joined by an influx of new players?

 

[Guilty_AI]

...those are both niche though, I mean there's still people playing street fighter 2, but it's nothing compared to SF5 or even SF4; you think those 30k l4d2 players wouldn't mostly move to a newly announced l4d3, joined by an influx of new players?

Some would, some would not, point is a significant non-negligible amount would still play it.
I mentioned Borderlands didn't i? B2 still gets 4000-5000 daily players despite B3 having been out and on sale for a good while now. Does B3 has more players? Sure, but 4-5k people playing 2 every day ain't exactly a 'minority'.

 

[Wildebeest]

There are six different Total War games on steam that currently have more players than Returnal. The oldest of that group is over fifteen years old. You want to talk about who has a weird idea of what is "mainstream" or "niche"?

 

[01011001]

Halo 3 and Halo Reach totally shat on Halo 4, which lost most of its player base within 3 months, most people went back to the older ones.

this happens all the time. also happened with Battlefield multiple times already.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

I think it's mostly a case of some people not having reliable, unlimited internet. Back when I had no other choice but satellite internet, I was against digital and stuff like always online gaming, but now that I have unlimited fiber optic internet I don't complain about such things.

Funny how it all works out.

 

[ShadowLag]

"Always online" for single player games has no benefits, but tons of downsides.

If Dave in IT spills coffee on his keyboard at any of the following places:

• My ISP
• The power station that provides electricity to my ISP
• Anywhere my traffic gets routed between my ISP and PSN or Xbox Live
• The power stations that provide electricity to any of those inbetween locations
• PSN or Xbox Live
• The power stations that provide electricity to PSN or Xbox Live
• Anywhere between PSN/XBL and the game's authentication servers
• The power stations that provide electricity to any of those inbetween locations
• The game's authentication servers
• The power stations that provide electricity to the game's authentication servers

The result is that I cannot play my game I bought for $60-70+ that is installed on my hard drive.

And that's just Dave in IT - imagine the myriad of other problems that could, and eventually will, occur at those locations.

Also: just because it's not a problem today, does not mean it won't be a problem in the future.

 

[Sygma]

It seems to me like people in the gaming community love to make hay over the most random of things, but before I call this random, I really want to better understand it.

My consoles are connected to via ethernet cables... they're always online. This is absolutely not a big deal to me. My PC is similarly always online (ethernet). My Macbook is always online (ethernet/wifi). There is nothing internet connected in my house that isn't always connected.

Which makes me wonder, what is with the vitriol towards things requiring an internet connection? Is there a legitimate concern here or is this just one more thing to get angry over?

*antagonism

dont worry all these people throwing a fit / stating they wont buy it because always online will be in Diablo IV's thread at launch

 

[GametimeUK]

Are people out there playing GT5 right now? Like I just feel like this is disingenuous as there is little reason to play the older version of Gran Turismo games.

No one is out there saying, let me boot up Madden 98.

Yeah, I bought GT5 recently at a measly £1.50 to play on both my PS3 and to make a back up copy for RPCS3.

 

[Shifty1897]

My consoles are connected to via ethernet cables... they're always online. This is absolutely not a big deal to me. My PC is similarly always online (ethernet). My Macbook is always online (ethernet/wifi). There is nothing internet connected in my house that isn't always connected.

Okay but what if your PC and MacBook wouldn't let you anything at all unless you had an internet connection?
What if you lived like 25% of Americans do (and even more outside the US) and have no internet or a very unreliable internet connection that could disconnect occasionally?
What if at some point as soon as a year after you buy your PC and MacBook, the manufacturers just decide to shut down the servers your computers connect to and now these devices are completely unusable forever?
Would you be upset then?

 

[Kataploom]

It’s nothing but a downgrade. Why anyone would be content with it makes no sense to me.

If there’s a power outage I’d like to still be able to play my games.

If there’s an internet outage I’d like to still be able to play my games.

If the servers get shut down I’d like to still be able to play my games.

If I bring my console with me somewhere where I have no connection I’d like to still be able to play my games.

Etc. etc.

For first world citizens that sounds like "WTF are we on mad max?", But reality is the in many third world countries that shit can be very normal and frequent, most countries aren't first world so more people complaining

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Okay but what if your PC and MacBook wouldn't let you anything at all unless you had an internet connection?
What if you lived like 25% of Americans do (and even more outside the US) and have no internet or a very unreliable internet connection that could disconnect occasionally?
What if at some point as soon as a year after you buy your PC and MacBook, the manufacturers just decide to shut down the servers your computers connect to and now these devices are completely unusable forever?
Would you be upset then?

Basically all smartphones these days have tethering capabilities. Last month we had an ice storm and the net was down for a week after the power came back on, so I simply turned my phone in to a hotspot until it came back on, and I live out in the sticks so there's not really a legit reason for anyone to worry about net issues these days.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

...those are both niche though, I mean there's still people playing street fighter 2, but it's nothing compared to SF5 or even SF4; you think those 30k l4d2 players wouldn't mostly move to a newly announced l4d3, joined by an influx of new players?

Your mistake is thinking that niche games have niche gamers. Technically everyone is a niche gamer, we just all have different niches and thus don't all buy the same games. But overall if you say it is okay to make all niche games unplayable by forcing always online and then turn off the server, you are going to affect EVERYONE.

 

[RCU005]

If there’s a power outage I’d like to still be able to play my games.

How though?

 

[Skyfox]

My steam deck uses more battery life if I want WiFi on. Which I don't.

I can pirate all I want but I'm trying to support creative professionals who make what I enjoy.

FUCK DRM.

It helps no one.

 

[Shifty1897]

Basically all smartphones these days have tethering capabilities. Last month we had an ice storm and the net was down for a week after the power came back on, so I simply turned my phone in to a hotspot until it came back on, and I live out in the sticks so there's not really a legit reason for anyone to worry about net issues these days.

Great idea as long as you're paying for that unlimited data plan with tethering.

 

[Winter John]

I wanted to kick back and play some Hitman. The internet was down again. It‘s pretty stable considering where we are but it goes out at least a couple of times a month. Anyways I started up Hitman and it told me to go fuck myself. No internet. No play. I’d get it if it was a multiplayer game but it ain’t

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Great idea as long as you're paying for that unlimited data plan with tethering.

Doesn't even need to be unlimited, just enough to get you out of an unlikely pinch. I only have 5 gigs of hotspot data and it didn't cost anything extra.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Some would, some would not, point is a significant non-negligible amount would still play it.

It doesn't matter, the big majority would move on, you can still find people who play kof 98, but they aren't representative of regular behaviour, the rest has moved on to kof15.

It's the behaviour specifically I'm talking about, let's not act like people still booting up their entire library of 20 year old games is anything other than outlier behaviour. I'm one of those outliers, heck even on a niche enthousiast forum like gaf, I doubt the majority still has their 20+ year old systems hooked up like I have.

It's about having a relative perspective, gaf might scream bloody murder about a game having always online, but I reckon the vast majority of the entire gamer demographic doesn't give a shit, or even affects them at all since there's an entire generation now that grew up being always connected.

 

[Guilty_AI]

It doesn't matter,

Yes it matters, one game with 5k daily players and another newer iteration with 10k, the older one still holds 1/3 of the total audience. Even things like 1k daily players is still a lot more than many modern games. This isn't a negligible amount of players we're talking about here, nor outliers, its on par with many modern indie and AA games.

5 years later and i still play Divinity Original Sin 2 campaigns with different people, both newer and older players. Me and some good 10k others every day. 15 years later and people still play old Halo games, as much as its most recent free online iteration. I spoke with colleagues who i found out to play Daggerfall and classic Fallout games.

The market for older games definitely isn't the one that brings most money nor the most popular, but it is by no means insignificant or small.

 

[Fuz]

"Always online" for single player games has no benefits, but tons of downsides.

If Dave in IT spills coffee on his keyboard at any of the following places:

• My ISP
• The power station that provides electricity to my ISP
• Anywhere my traffic gets routed between my ISP and PSN or Xbox Live
• The power stations that provide electricity to any of those inbetween locations
• PSN or Xbox Live
• The power stations that provide electricity to PSN or Xbox Live
• Anywhere between PSN/XBL and the game's authentication servers
• The power stations that provide electricity to any of those inbetween locations
• The game's authentication servers
• The power stations that provide electricity to the game's authentication servers

The result is that I cannot play my game I bought for $60-70+ that is installed on my hard drive.

And that's just Dave in IT - imagine the myriad of other problems that could, and eventually will, occur at those locations.

Also: just because it's not a problem today, does not mean it won't be a problem in the future.

Honestly, all this isn't really a huge problem. Not acceptable - but not the main issue.

The problem would be the publisher deciding that, yep, you're done with your game - we're shutting off the servers, but don't worry! You can buy the sequel.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Yes it matters

No, it doesn't, you're being too laser focused on your borderlands example, I'm talking about the activity as a whole; the people that sit in a 15 year old game's mp servers until they are turned off are outliers, most just move on to the next thing.
To reiterate my actual point:

It's about having a relative perspective, gaf might scream bloody murder about a game having always online, but I reckon the vast majority of the entire gamer demographic doesn't give a shit, or even affects them at all since there's an entire generation now that grew up being always connected.

 

[AREYOUOKAY?]

Future drink coasters.

 

[Guilty_AI]

No, it doesn't, you're being too laser focused on your borderlands example, I'm talking about the activity as a whole; the people that sit in a 15 year old game's mp servers until they are turned off are outliers, most just move on to the next thing.
To reiterate my actual point:

I gave other examples, Halo, Baldurs Gate, L4D2, TF2, with players sitting by the thousands in these 15-20 year old games. Sometimes competing with modern games.

Plenty people play old games, a significant amount. I don't understand why you find so hard to accept it and move on when all the data to prove that is there right under your nose.

Besides, if theres even just a group of 3 friends online in the entire world, the publisher still shouldn't have the right to just disable the product these 3 people paid for just because it isn't popular anymore.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Which makes me wonder, what is with the vitriol towards things requiring an internet connection? Is there a legitimate concern here or is this just one more thing to get angry over?

If I want to play Babylon Fall, I can't because it was always online.

If I want to play with friends in co-op soul taking in Mind jack, i can't because it was always online.

If I want to play MAG, I can't because it was always online. The disc is now a coaster.

 

[Omnipunctual Godot]

When WB pulls the servers for the Arkham games, I'll still be able to play my copies.

When WB pulls the servers for Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League, no one will be able to play their copies.

 

[Strider7]

Not everyone lives in a place where there's good internet

This. I live on a small island in the pacific. Internet is unreliable and often slow.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

I gave other examples, Halo, Baldurs Gate, L4D2, TF2, all sitting by the thousands in these 15-20 year old games. Sometimes competing with modern games.

None of the examples matter, because those are mostly multiplayer focused titles anyway, this topic is about single player games that have an always online requirement, it's pointless to argue about games that have their longevity because of the multiplayer. But even with MP games you even directly compared L4D2 to BL3, while they offer vastly different experiences; just because BL3 exists doesn't mean the L4D player has to even like it.
Even with games in the same franchise, the experienced offered can be different, I'm still on CoD CW and skipped MW2 entirely, why? It doesn't have zombies so it's completely irrelevant to me.
But -in general- when there's a new version of the thing people have been playing for years, the majority moves away from it, the ones that stick around are outliers.
With single player games the majority doesn't even get to the point of "playing them for years", they finish it (or in a lot of cases not even looking at achievement stats) and they just move on to whatever is next.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

What console are you playing through a power outage?

Where do you take your console to? How often does that happen?

Any portable system?

 

[ShadowLag]

Honestly, all this isn't really a huge problem. Not acceptable - but not the main issue.

The problem would be the publisher deciding that, yep, you're done with your game - we're shutting off the servers, but don't worry! You can buy the sequel.

Yep, add it to the list of things that can and will eventually go wrong.

 

[01011001]

What console are you playing through a power outage?

Where do you take your console to? How often does that happen?

I didn't have a power outage in literally 20 years, but 4 internet outages in the last 2.

 

[Portugeezer]

Every online only game I ever played has had server issues at one point or another, which is dumb of someone wants to play single player.

 

[dorkimoe]

It seems to me like people in the gaming community love to make hay over the most random of things, but before I call this random, I really want to better understand it.

My consoles are connected to via ethernet cables... they're always online. This is absolutely not a big deal to me. My PC is similarly always online (ethernet). My Macbook is always online (ethernet/wifi). There is nothing internet connected in my house that isn't always connected.

Which makes me wonder, what is with the vitriol towards things requiring an internet connection? Is there a legitimate concern here or is this just one more thing to get angry over?

*antagonism

Because suspend resume doesnt work for "always online" games. You have to reconnect everytime

 

[sachos]

It sucks because of this OP

Xbox shooter CrossfireX is being shut down, including its single-player mode | VGC

Both multiplayer and solo campaigns will be inaccessible after May…

www.videogameschronicle.com

Server issues lock Gran Turismo 7 owners out of single-player races

30-hour outage highlights the problems with “always online” DRM.

arstechnica.com

Outriders proves, once again, that online-only singleplayer sucks

Leave me alone, servers, I’m trying to play here.

www.pcgamer.com

It doesnt matter if you have the greatest internet ever, if you don't have a server to connect to then you are fucked. If you can't see the issue with this then i don't know what to tell you.

 

[Crayon]

It's more a matter of principle than practice. You can laugh but lack of principles is an epidemic in the western world. Not that everyone needs to have the same ones.

 

[gothmog]

If developers need it to be online then so be it. I will vote with my wallet.

 

[Spaceman292]

Honest question, don't you think y'all are an extreme minority of an already niche subsection of enthusiast videogame players? If I would look at the entire demographic of "gamers", behaviour as you describe just seem like outliers.

Someone who types 'y'all' has a terrible opinion. Like clockwork.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Someone who types 'y'all' has a terrible opinion. Like clockwork.

Someone doesn't have an argument and decides to casually discriminate against millions of people. Like clockwork.

 

[Scotty W]

Did you play Outriders on release? No, because no one did, because the servers were fucked. I'd like to play Anthem again for a little bit because the gameplay was kinda fun, but microsoft has locked my account and my game is now worthless.

I don't like being beaten over the head with mtx ads on the start screen. I don't like the start up taking longer because the game has to log me in every time I start it up. I don't like the fact that the game will become literally unplayable in a few years when the servers shut down.

Also they're harvesting all your data and stuff. And if your house has spotty wifi you're fucked. Also you're forced to download every update even if sometimes they break the game.

A load of people who played FO76 on release had their personal details leaked.

There's tonnes of other reasons it's shit but I can't be bothered to type them out.

This is what I call an antagonasm!

 

[YuLY]

 

[daffyduck]

Doesn't even need to be unlimited, just enough to get you out of an unlikely pinch. I only have 5 gigs of hotspot data and it didn't cost anything extra.

Lucky you that has access to cell providers that aren’t greedy.

 

[BattleScar]

Always needing to be online means you don't own it. If the company decides the digital handshake doesn't work, it renders all the money you spent on it to be meaningless.

 

[anothertech]

Xbone 2013 the thread

 

[8BiTw0LF]

Pros:
No piracy
Everyone is one the same game version

Cons:
Devs can shutdown servers
Not everyone has a stable internet connection

 

[Supple]

Always online and matchmaking (no longer allowing players to run their own dedicated servers) are some of the worst things to happen to gaming.

 

[Spaceman292]

Pros:
No piracy
Everyone is one the same game version

Cons:
Devs can shutdown servers
Not everyone has a stable internet connection

I wouldn't call that a pro

 

[Paasei]

Let’s turn it around? Can anyone name one good reason for a single player game to ALWAYS require an online connection?

If you can name me one that doesn’t have a con attached to it, I would be extremely impressed.