Conciliator
Banned
Jim Sterling seems a lot more annoying when I watch him talk as opposed to when I just hear him talk. He should really look into some new glasses.
<3 u Jim
Jimquisition: Why PC Gaming Gets Away With It
- Thread starter Nibel
- Start date
I wonder if they will use their DRM policy change to get people into the Xbox One and then start to make that shift?
I bought from gog Unreal Gold ( i still have the original in a box but went buy it again) that game is 15 years old and with a simple DX10 file made by a guy i can still play it today on a modern machine. Same with UT99. Infinite backwards combatibilty and mods people. You will not see that on consoles.
FunkyPajamas
Member
This is also a VERY, VERY important issue. So far BC through emulation has been poorly implemented and in most cases you are left with two options: forget about your old games or re-buy them and hope for the best. If console makers can guarantee 100% right now that the next generation devices will support current generation digital content, then I'd say most gamers would be willing to listen.
I think anyone who was questioning Jim about PC "getting away with it" should point them in the direction of UbiSoft and how well their attempts of DRM went down. Short answer like a fucking lead balloon.
Even still though their other DRM solutions Tages and to a lesser extent Solid Shield are abhorrent. Machine limits and when there gone you're screwed and you're buying that game again unless you can jump through the hoops to get a serial released from a minefield of customer service depts.
Even still though their other DRM solutions Tages and to a lesser extent Solid Shield are abhorrent. Machine limits and when there gone you're screwed and you're buying that game again unless you can jump through the hoops to get a serial released from a minefield of customer service depts.
Grinchy
Banned
LOL that's awesome. I never actually thought he'd see that but I'm really glad he isn't insulted.
How? Who will sell their boxes?
They're pushing x86?
Great to see this video. If Steam starts to suck we can chose something else. Valve are also better at knowing what consumers want and don't have any shareholders they have to take care of.
That's not how I remember it. Most games had just a simple CD key you head to enter during the installation that was checked offline and when playing the game the disc had to be in the DVD drive. That was not a big deal in my opinion. Lending games, trading, selling, renting was all possible.
The nonsense with limited installation started if I remember correctly with Bioshock 1 followed by Mass Effect 1 and Spore around 2007/8 around 3 years after Half Life 2 and Steam.
But even after that there were still enough games released without anything more than a simple disc check. This "ultra-shitty" DRM situation only happened a few years ago and steamworks was just one of many DRM solutions tried by publishers.
A Black Falcon
Member
Very good video, he's right on every point. And in particular, "Consoles don't deserve to abandon the used games market"? I agree.
This is true, and it's been disappointing to see so many PC games these days use online-registration DRM that makes resale of physical games impossible because they're just online-registered one-time-use CD keys basically.
No idea. So far nothing tells me that it will happen (not even MS' own comments about the matter), so I won't assume that's what they are going to do.
In fact, since they never mentioned doing huge sales or allowing competition in the digital marketplace, I'm inclined to believe the opposite of what you're saying.
They could be making their own MS/Xbone stores if they really wanted to go that direction.
I don't see it happening but just for the sake of conversations and drawing some interesting thoughts out, I keep posting.
While speaking the truth, I do think Jim is exaggerating as to how far console digital is from Steam, at least when it comes to Sony's PS Store. Nowadays there's almost always some kind of Sale going on, often more than one kind at a time. The sale prices are usually quite reasonable good (except with games like Call of Duty, but that's not really Sony's fault) and as time has gone by it's not just the 5 year old games that are sold at reasonable prices, but more recent games. And not NEARLY every retail game is 60€ anymore, plenty of games start to sell for less, so there's flexibility in how publishers price their games. The same games are costly that are costly on Steam as well.
And then there's PS+ with which you can get 4-6 games per month (sometimes more).
And then there's PS+ with which you can get 4-6 games per month (sometimes more).
ReBurn
Gold Member
My copies of KOTOR and JSRF I bought a decade ago still work on my Xbox 360. My PlayStation games are just fine on my PS3. By the same token, I have some PC games that I bought back then that don't like 64 bit Windows 7. But none of that has anything at all to do with used game sales.
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts. I think Microsoft's original plan was to have the Xbox One replace your cable box and we'd get it from the Cable company but that didn't seem to work out. As long as Microsoft continues to kiss ass to retail (who is their customer, not us) we won't get a good deal out of their digital plans. it was all stick and no carrot. Valve built Steam after years of showing it's great for consumers all while retail abandoned the PC.
Lightning Lord
Banned
Yeah, I have recently been watching his stuff (since joining GAF), and I really like what I've seen thus far.
This video in particular voiced my feelings on the issue quite well.
J
Jotamide
Unconfirmed Member
Open platform, competition, end of story.
Foxy Fox 39
Banned
The fact that the Xbox one was shipping with DRM and an all digital space while NONE of your xbla or DD games would transfer is a huge problem. If you want to implement DRM "like" PC's then you had better make sure I can (mostly) ALWAYS play the games I buy.
The fact that Major Nelson kept saying "Hey its too early man! Live in the now! Stop thinking about the future and the security of your digital games, but please do join us in the all digital future because that's what the Xbox One is" was pretty telling. Microsoft doesn't care about the consumer and their backwards messaging should have let a lot of gamers know how much they didn't care to even get their message correct.
I need to want this because I still don't get it.
If one argument is competition, with publishers able to sell steam keys through third parties,men outraging competition o price like with physical goods. OK. The original Xbox plan would have sold physical discs through multiple retail channels, encouraging competition. Those discs would basically act like steam works physical discs that you can buy. I don't understand the specific difference here. Yes XBL would probably be the only place to buy digitally and prices are likely to be expensive. But the retail choice is still there as a proxy for digital download - what you would have ended up with is identical.
Origin and UPlay aren't competition, they are large publishers trying to create enclaves and avoid paying any rev share to valve or other distribution channels (and own the consumer relationship)
If one argument is competition, with publishers able to sell steam keys through third parties,men outraging competition o price like with physical goods. OK. The original Xbox plan would have sold physical discs through multiple retail channels, encouraging competition. Those discs would basically act like steam works physical discs that you can buy. I don't understand the specific difference here. Yes XBL would probably be the only place to buy digitally and prices are likely to be expensive. But the retail choice is still there as a proxy for digital download - what you would have ended up with is identical.
Origin and UPlay aren't competition, they are large publishers trying to create enclaves and avoid paying any rev share to valve or other distribution channels (and own the consumer relationship)
Woo-Fu
Banned
He needs a good pair of black driving gloves instead of the winter gloves he wears.
Nice video but I don't think it will matter one bit to the people who use the "steam defense" when it comes to console drm/digital distribution. If those people were interested in the truth they wouldn't be using the "steam defense" in the first place. If something is bad it is still bad even if there is something else just as bad, or even worse. Which means that even if the Steam situation was exactly the same as the Xbox One situation pre-reversal the Xbox One situation would still have been a raw deal.
Mihos
Gold Member
I usually choose PC games over console because of the lower price, higher quality, and (so far) eternal backwards compatability.
I usually choose Steam as my store of choice because they offer a lot of comunity options and do an excelent job of curating my collection and providing me with enhancments, like Big Picture mode and remote installing, which honestly is what made me move PC gaming out of the office and into my recliner.
I also have the option to keep the same platform and choose another source for games if they piss me off. That isn't something that either of the consoles offer me... but PS+ is geting there!
I usually choose Steam as my store of choice because they offer a lot of comunity options and do an excelent job of curating my collection and providing me with enhancments, like Big Picture mode and remote installing, which honestly is what made me move PC gaming out of the office and into my recliner.
I also have the option to keep the same platform and choose another source for games if they piss me off. That isn't something that either of the consoles offer me... but PS+ is geting there!
Marty Chinn
Member
I know Day 1 when the Xbox One and PS4 have their respective launches, I will be able to get games for probably around $40 to $45 because various stores will be competing with sales at launch. How is it drastically different if MS had their way that you buy a game physical game in a store at a discounted prices where MS isn't dictating prices or getting a cut outside of the license fee? It's essentially physical PC games that activate online but with discounted competitive prices. If your issue is price, retail distribution will give you that avenue.
Edit: Beaten by mrklaw!
Steam only became relevant a few years ago too, basically with the first seasonal sale. The result is that the worst of the older DRM solutions have pretty much exited the market.
Since when was this thread about "used game sales"? And you're attempting to say that backward compatibility on consoles is somewhat comparable to PC because you were able to hand pick a few games as an example that PC BC sucks and console BC is fine?
Wasn't really defending any kind of anti-used games practices, just thought that Jim shat on consoles a bit too much with that part. Yeah, they are not as good as PC, but it's not like the difference is huuuuuuuuuuuge like it still was even 2 or 3 years ago. I can go to PS Store now and buy less than year old retail games for <10.
Jim and Bosman for me.
faceless007
Member
For anyone interested in the playing and preservation of games in the long term, there's simply an inherent difference between software designed to work on only a single generation of hardware by one manufacturer and which will likely not be usable on any future hardware line, and software designed to work on an open platform that will still be viable for the foreseeable future, and for which any software will almost certainly be transferable to whatever systems I'm running in a decade. That's just an intractable advantage the PC landscape has over consoles. Now if you're the kind of gamer who simply doesn't care about the longevity of your games beyond the length of one generation, this probably doesn't matter to you. But it does matter to a lot of us, and it's why Steam gets a "pass" while a closed hardware system does not.
Mihos
Gold Member
By that time, most the people who were going to pay full price already have, so it was either your $10 or nothing at that point. Hell, I just rebought the Old Republic games again. I might have picked them up used at some point, but this way they get my money instead of Gamestop.
If MS or Sony offered the digital version just a little under the list used game price, I think they could get the same resul
Shai-Tan
Banned
He hangs his argument on the next gen digital stores being like current digital stores where retail is primary. When everything is day and date (and hopefully preload with preorder) that will begin to erode retail even with used games. A lot of the value of trade in is eaten up by retailer margins. But the platform holders need to do a better job making it easy to buy games online with alternative payment, gift purchasing, gift cards, etc. Things like wish list should be easy even for mom to figure out. I haven't even seen confirmation that wish lists will even exist.
Retail doesn't do that on steam either. The big price cuts late in a game's life are steam store only. So you can't argue competition, citing GMG, Amazon etc, then talk about crazy low prices as though they are connected. Both happen, but both are separate and unrelated things.
AND THANK GOD FOR HIM.
Yah, thank god for him. I can't believe that one day I would utter that sentence in a non-ironic or -humorous manner.
Yeah, that's what I meant. It got so bad that I seriously wanted to brain anyone that even mentioned steam out of reflex.
Shai-Tan
Banned
The prices on Steam are informed by the historical demand observed for games at different price points. It's possible there might be some differences that affect demand (piracy rate, more games available in an average release window compared to consoles)
Because they were afraid to get stuck in the same place PC was years ago in the US: the minuscule aisle in the back of the store. It's their choice to back down, not ours. Valve didn't back down, but it also doesn't mean people actually liked what they were doing back then. I remember having a terrible experience trying to play a demo of HL2 that came with a magazine: the darn thing took 4 hours to install and I had to keep my phone line busy all the time. That was enough to put me off anything Valve until TF2 was out.
Also, even among PC enthusiasts always-online DRM is considered to be the worst kind of DRM and any game using such thing always causes a huge scene (Diablo 3, Sim City, any Ubisoft UPlay game). Creating an entire platform based around the principle of constant ownership verification is moving backwards, not forward.
FaintDeftone
Junior Member
I love these Jimquisition videos. The guy has more balls than most in gaming journalism.
Agreed. I think fear did play a big part on it since they quickly did a 180 as soon as the backlash started. Now if only they could have shown off the family content sharing thing without 30 other PR quotes conflicting and confusing everything, then maybe it would start to sound a little more palatable.
MS were a little too quick for this, as it really shows.
Photolysis
Banned
I think the purchasing habits are healthy and all gamers benefit indirectly even if they have different price points they're prepared to accept themselves. I might be prepared to pay $20, but if they periodically drop it to $10 because of all the consumers who won't get it at that price then that still benefits me.
When it comes to Steam sales, publishers having seen their success seem to realise that they can make more by putting a game on sale every so often because of the increased numbers of buyers. I can't say this is the case when it comes to consoles, especially with Microsoft.
Demand curves have always been a real thing when it comes to games. However when it comes to consoles and the used game BS, pubs/devs seem to like to pretend this doesn't exist, that pretty much everyone will purchase it at full price, and all used sales at cheaper prices are 'lost' when in reality many of them would never have occurred otherwise. There is some price depreciation of new games, but it's typically more due to retailers wanting to clear existing stock rather than the publisher lowering the price.
When it comes to Steam they don't have that attitude. They're not complaining about how Steam sales are killing the industry because they can see the numbers and know how many are buying the game because it's cheaper. If they halve the profit per sale but sell 5x as many then they win and gamers win.
chrominance
Member
It's not just other people selling Steam keys (though that too is pretty great). It's the ability to walk away from the Steam ecosystem altogether. Most indie games nowadays offer you a choice: Steamworks or DRM-free, either through other sites like GOG/Amazon, through their own site (often powered by Humble Bundle), or both. Larger games have slowly been moving towards Steamworks, which is not necessarily a great thing, but even there the downsides are fewer--no mandatory online check-in, for example. And even with that, you can purchase major games with or without Steamworks (check any Amazon.com digital game sale and you'll see a few examples--I think Rockstar games are like this, for example).
Origin and UPlay aren't competition in the same sense, yes, but it's worth noting that EVEN ORIGIN sells software not made by EA. Conversely, Valve games have been available from other online retailers for a while now, including Gamestop/Impulse and Amazon. More PC storefronts have faded from prominence than have ever existed on any of the major consoles--remember when Impulse and Direct2Drive were big deals? Now we have Amazon, who isn't likely to go anywhere anytime soon, and Green Man Gaming, who have done a bang-up job of pushing the boundaries of what's possible on digital with things like game trade-ins on non-Steamworks/Origin games and significant pre-order discounts and ongoing full-catalog vouchers. GMG in particular is so good that I spend far more money over there these days than Steam.
And let's not forget Good Old Games, who have always been banging the DRM-free drum to great effect, and have grown their catalog to include much more than just classic PC games and CD Projekt Red joints. Or the Humble Bundle guys, who've pioneered a whole new business model while remaining largely (though not entirely) DRM-free as well.
Like Sterling said, in the PC market, Steam isn't competing with retail; retail's been a non-entity for years now. Steam's competing with all the other online marketplaces. That is very unlikely to happen on a closed platform like a console.
Dark Octave
Banned
Wait someone answer me this please. That clip of The Witcher that was shown at the 1:28 mark, is that part 2 or 3 cause I heard the game looks great but gat damn, if that's 2 I'm picking it up TODAY.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
I'm glad he made this video. Really outlines the benefits of PC vs the BS that consoles and mainly Xbone tried to pull over our heads.
What is obvious out from all this is: their vision was not strong enough.
The mess about the sharing plan, which changed from one PR statement to the other, was proof they didn't think everything through and everything was in flux. So much that they were actually capable of dropping everything down and going back to the disc-in-the-drive model.
The people at Microsoft had this amazing idea of constant ownership verification, where they could have great control over everything and even profit from used games and only later they started to think that maybe some people wouldn't like the idea of being under a leash 24/7 and that they should come up with some positives to ease people into it.
Finally, while they could have come up with some solid compromise for consumers a few years later, this is certainly not the ideal environment to be doing this. We already have the Wii U dragging itself around and something the console market certainly doesn't need is another failing platform.
Ok good points. But IMO for large mainstream games, alternatives simply aren't there. Sure,for indies they can go DRM free, and GOG for older titles. But for the mainstream titles there is pretty much only steam
gutterboy44
Member
Just got this the other day. Never had a complaint. I understood the pro/con exchange of going digital and the service has only improved year over year. The software updates never bothered me either. I guess I have always been an OCD updater of firmware, drivers, updates etc so if a piece of software or hardware needs new shit, I do it asap and get on with my life.
There was definitely some large chunks of time where I did not utilize Steam much in the last 9 years, maybe I got lucky and that is when some of the widespread headaches took place. I use other services for some DD games but Steam has proven themselves trustworthy, innovative and above all else stable. I don't have a single piece of tech hardware from 2004 that I still use, but the games I bought on Steam in 2004 still work with the click of a button. Shit, I won't even get to play the PS3/X360 games I bought this week on a system I get by the end of the year!
PC basically gets away with it because there isn't one sole company to boycott and there's no alternative to go to if you want all the PC-centric perks.
Microsoft comes out and says they're going to DRM-up everything and prevents used games. Customers throw a fit and say they are going to get the alternative PS4 instead. Microsoft has no other option than to give in or risk losing customers.
Everyone on PC uses some sort of CD key DRM and prevents used games. Customers may have thrown a fit at one time but then they look around and can't find any singular company to bitch at and are like, "Oh wait, this is the only place to get PC games and features." Customers have no other option than to deal with it or just quit PC gaming.
Microsoft comes out and says they're going to DRM-up everything and prevents used games. Customers throw a fit and say they are going to get the alternative PS4 instead. Microsoft has no other option than to give in or risk losing customers.
Everyone on PC uses some sort of CD key DRM and prevents used games. Customers may have thrown a fit at one time but then they look around and can't find any singular company to bitch at and are like, "Oh wait, this is the only place to get PC games and features." Customers have no other option than to deal with it or just quit PC gaming.
Oh sorry, I misunderstood your post then. You meant people who defended the Xbone DRM using Steam as an argument, right? Looks like we were actually talking about the same thing. My mistake!