Xbox 720 rumours: internet required, no used games.

Why can't Microsoft do this then? If Gamestop is out of the picture they can sell old games at used game prices and the publisher gets his cut.

I assumed Dan was joking about that.

I like you Charles but that's silly. Why does Steam do it?

I have Perfect Dark Zero that is currently selling Zero copies per month. I put it on sale for $5.99 and it sells 1 copy. That's $5.99 more than I had a minute ago and it cost me nothing.

Can we just drop Dark Souls as an example? Because it is fucking stupid.

Online play in the "single-player" framework is a core part of Dark Souls' design. This is not typical of the situation we can expect going forward, because it's the hard way to approach the problem of "justifying" your always-online DRM.

More likely: critical, gameplay-defining features like counters of how many people are in a particular area. Also known as useless bullshit.

Sony and Microsoft could do it, but I don't trust them to. It's their little walled garden economy. With Steam, there's so many individual parties fighting for a slice of the pie, since Valve allow publishers to sell the games in CD-key form. There's no reason for Sony and Microsoft to let publishers distribute game keys to Amazon, which would then enable them to undercut their own digital marketplace.

So? What's your point, people will buy products even if they contain a feature they don't like? Thanks for the news flash, but that's not really the issue here. What's at issue is the question of whether or not requiring an internet connection is a good thing in general, and Diablo 3 is actually a great example of why it isn't. I bought that game, and I don't feel like I got screwed even though the required internet connection was stupid, but the fact remains that it was stupid. It was stupid that I couldn't play that game on the train or on a plane or anyplace else that I didn't have an internet connection. It was stupid that I had to sit in queues to log on to a server to play. It was stupid that I had to screw around with a separate app on my phone to log in so my account was less likely to be hacked. And I received nothing in return for this hassle; in no way was the game improved for the inclusion of that restriction. So yeah, it was a bad feature, and I'd prefer it if the games I bought did not include that bad feature. That's not less valid just because that's not the only thing that people consider when deciding whether or not to buy a game.

And I should simply accept consumer hostile implementations? My console is also always connected, that's irrelevant. A required connection strictly so a company has control over my device and game is not acceptable. I fully understand the business rationale for it, that's not the issue, the issue is that I as a consumer don't want this "feature" as all it will do is cripple my device.

I disagree completely. The genius in Souls' approach is the (more or less) optional multiplayer experience built into the single player one. Imposing it would not be an enhancement to a single player experience. In fact that expressly changes the game from a single player to a multi player experience by doing this.

This doesn't make any sense you're saying it's a single player game because it's a single player game and not a multi player one. There's no assumption here, From could have made it a multi-player game there is no requirement at the console level to achieve that. They weren't limited in their design because the console itself doesn't enforce a network connection, they intentionally designed the game to not need a network connection.

They sell MS Points on Amazon right now. I can get them at Target, Gamestop, shit even Stop and Shop. Why would they end that practice?

I've worked at gamestop. Companies tend to threaten the whole "No use games" thing a lot. The thing is, this would cause a lot of problems they don't want to deal with, mostly customers being pissed.

Sony already backed down from the idea, most likely, Microsoft will too. It's just not worth it.

Yes, please. If every developer was making online implementations as vital as the one in Dark Souls I wouldn't have a problem with this, and also if every developer was doing anything as well as it was done in Dark Souls we'd be living in a much better gaming world. So ok, everyone who has done as good a job with this as From Software did with Dark Souls gets a free pass from me on requiring an internet connection if they want it. So that's From Software and nobody else on Earth.

Nope.

So where are all the brilliant primarily-or-entirely-single-player games that require an internet connection and are better for it?

That the majority of PC gamers don't care what they give up as long as they get their fix is news to no one. This is why the vast majority of the hobby is now under the control of a single company. I hope console gamers have more sense and reject the new restrictions that Microsoft and Sony will force on them, but I have almost no confidence in that happening.

Has something changed since this article was posted? Apparently Steam said no to the court ruling.

From Steam's FAQ:

I don't agree. Luckily Michael Pachter agrees with you. What could go wrong? :-)

http://au.gamespot.com/features/will-next-gen-consoles-block-used-games-6374875/

Admittedly he does then say

What I'm saying is that the assumption is there on the consumers part. Right now a consumer thinks, and is entitled to think, that if they pick up a game that is a 'story based experience', a game type that has been traditionally single-player, that it will work without an internet connection. That consumer assumption then guides the design of the game because at all times the designer must assume the player doesn't have a net connection. A developer could try to push against this market assumption but it's risky.

Change it at the console level and you change the consumers expectations for all games at a stroke including those games that have been traditionally entirely internet independent.

But there are plenty of individual games that do require an internet connection. As you've shown, sales don't appear to be significantly hampered by this fact. So the environment you're talking about does exist.

All I'm seeing here is that it's apparently OK if it's a PC game (because PC games are somehow special) but if Microsoft does it on their console it's evil and bad and terrible.

I'm just trying to understand the reasoning behind this thinking.

Apparently the German courts are going to keep pushing them on it.

PC gamers had this war about 3-5 years ago. It didn't kill PC gaming, in fact its better than it has ever been and available at a lower price point per game than literally ever.

We won. Hence the no fucks given about ability to resell. Always on DRM usually touches a nerve however, due the inevitable DRM server failures.

No, there is that guarantee, because the developer can say, as Blizzard did with Diablo 3, that the game requires it. They can make it not work without one, and as you've argued in this thread, they can sell games in spite of this regardless of the complaints that some people will have about it. So in that situation, yes, a developer can design the game mechanics knowing that the internet connection will always be there.

The second Dark Souls 3 is announced as a console exclusive you'll all buy a 720/PS4 and defend the always online as crucial for meaningful gameplay, while lauding the no-used-games-market as a great tool to encourage FROM to make more games.

All of these go together, there is nothing stopping a developer from requiring an internet connection on a single player console game as it stands today. The market has proven willing to accept this as D3 and Ubisoft have shown. There is no assumption required on the designers part. This isn't some sort of if you build it they will come scenario.

I think everyone who's arguing against it is just as against it on PCs as well as consoles.

Essentially console game development design is always guided by the lowest common denominator; because there is no internet required connection at the console level and traditionally single-player type games haven't required one the market pressure, consumer expectations, publisher expectation have for a while all been pushing design away from this kind of blending.

Of course, recently as these always online requirements start to become mainstream you are starting to see a lot more experimental design interaction blending between single-player and multi-player type experiences e.g. Dark Souls, Mass Effect 3, Sim City V, Diablo 3 etc.

Some of them have influenced the design negatively (Diablo 3) but others seem a lot more promising (Sim City V) and some worked out pretty great (Dark Souls).

It wont meet certification on the xbox if it doesn't allow off-line play.

Well indeed, it is one of those things that is an evolving situation. Right now it doesn't really exist as a phenomena on consoles but PC experimentation tends to come to consoles eventually and... here we are. Diablo 3 is the only high profile game that could actually design around the assumption of an always online connection because of it's PC only status and the reason Blizzard could get away with it is because they are incredibly rich and can afford to go out and challenge consumer expectations and other shibboleths.

Individual publishers could right now go and try and challenge the single player assumption but, for the most part, they won't because of the aforementioned designing for the lowest common hardware denominator approach (leave no dollars unclaimed). Change it at the console level and there is a new floor.

The market accepts a required internet connection for certain games so the there is no market expectation that all games will work offline. The publisher simply has to make it known that a connection is necessary to the gameplay.

Some work out well because they offer customers actual benefits to the online features and don't ACTUALLY REQUIRE A CONNECTION!!! while others offer nothing for the online requirement and are impacted negatively. None of this should come as a surprise.

That's not what that requirement says at all. It simply says that a game has to handle disconnecting from Xbox live, servers and other consoles. Nothing about off-line play at all. The existence of MMOs on the 360 clearly shows that requiring a connection will not fail certification.

As much as I appreciate how cool the multiplayer design in Dark Souls is, again I think we need to remember that Microsoft gave exactly zero fucks about the implications for the emergence of interesting design trends when (or indeed if) they made a decision regarding "always on internet required".

Such as decision would have been based on stuff like the used game market (don't forget Microsoft gets no royalties for used games either), Piracy/DRM and probably thoughts around micro transactions, DLC, App store and other assorted monetisations.

That is a fair point, I forgot about X360 MMOs.

Right, and that last part is the tricky part because if you want to challenge assumptions and create consumer awareness that you are going against them you have to spend a reasonable amount of marketing money to do so. That's sometimes not an option and sometimes just not the sort of thing that your publisher money man will sign off on without good reason. So, in the end a lot of design is driven by market expectations, that shouldn't be surprising since you see this in all other areas of game design.