E3 - 2013

[FiveThous]

If you don't want to go on what people are saying now then what can we go on? M$ pissed a lot of people off. If Sony gets 10% of them to switch, and they keep their current fanbase, it's a giant win for Sony. Go on any Xbox forum, there's not much positivity. Hell the one I was looking up you have to be a Live member to be part of, and 9/10 people hate the One. That says a lot.

Your hyperbole is annoying.

So you hate what Microsoft is doing thats fine, but isnt that what Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, iTunes, AppleTv etc are already doing? You better go cancel those subscriptions then as well. Physical copies are going to die, cloud based gaming is helping with that. As Malt said in the preorder thread eliminating discs can only make gaming developers more money which if used correctly can mean even better gaming experiences. Xbox realizes this is the way of the future so they are bending over backwards to make developers happy.

 

[gourimoko]

Your hyperbole is annoying.

So you hate what Microsoft is doing thats fine, but isnt that what Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, iTunes, AppleTv etc are already doing? You better go cancel those subscriptions then as well. Physical copies are going to die, cloud based gaming is helping with that. As Malt said in the preorder thread eliminating discs can only make gaming developers more money which if used correctly can mean even better gaming experiences. Xbox realizes this is the way of the future so they are bending over backwards to make developers happy.

No it's not. If you buy media from iTunes, it's yours. You never have to log back into iTunes to use your media - not ever. Apple hasn't done anything like this at all and went out of their way to protect consumer ownership rights. While it's difficult to transfer media from one Apple product to another, it is possible, and without Apple's intervention; especially if you use manual management.

 

[MalTalm]

No it's not. If you buy media from iTunes, it's yours. You never have to log back into iTunes to use your media - not ever. Apple hasn't done anything like this at all and went out of their way to protect consumer ownership rights. While it's difficult to transfer media from one Apple product to another, it is possible, and without Apple's intervention; especially if you use manual management.

The only difference between Microsoft and Apple is the need to log in online once every 24 hours. This still wouldn't be realistic with devices like iPods, but it makes a ton of sense with a home console designed to be most effective when connected to the internet in the first place. The point made about iTunes refers to your inability to sell a song or album purchased off iTunes to another user. The right to resell your music is held by Apple. Are there ways around it? Probably, but certainly not endorsed by Apple.

And I still struggle to see how logging in online once every 24 hours is inconvenient for most American consumers. It serves to help protect publishers from having their products pirated, without providing draconian style DRM we've seen in games like Diablo 3 and SimCity.

And saying Apple has went out of their way to protect consumer ownership rights is laughable. They've been at the forefront of reducing digital sharing of data for some time, instead forcing consumers to purchase items directly from apple for themselves. At $1 a song, it's a reasonable request and again one I don't take umbrage with, but let's not exaggerate their choices as being consumer-friendly.

 

[Jack Brickman]

And I still struggle to see how logging in online once every 24 hours is inconvenient for most American consumers. It serves to help protect publishers from having their products pirated, without providing draconian style DRM we've seen in games like Diablo 3 and SimCity.

Except it won't protect publishers from having their products pirated. SimCity has already been pirated, and easily, because it didn't actually require DRM. EA just added it because, presumably, they're dicks. Diablo 3 actually has pretty effective DRM, but only because many assets in the game are stored on Blizzard servers. Really, the only effective DRM is to essentially make your game an MMO as Blizzard did with Diablo 3 even though it's not an MMO and alienated plenty of fans (myself included...loved the first two Diablo games, did not buy Diablo 3). The downside, of course, is that doing so gives your game a shelf life. I can still play Diablo and Diablo 2 for as long as modern hardware supports them. Diablo 3, on the other hand, is dead the minute Blizzard decides to shut down their servers.

Unless every developer stores assets server side (that won't happen for most games), games will continue to be pirated. The thing is, pirates really aren't the problem. They're an excuse. There is a portion of the population that has never and will never pay for games. Fuck them. Developers need to stop worrying about them and start worrying about the people that actually pay for their games, because those are the people that are punished by these bullshit, ridiculous DRM schemes.

 

[gourimoko]

I for one don't play either the 360 or PS3 (for gaming) much anymore. For a little background on me I used to play Halo 2 competitively and tried to play in MLG tournies but my team wasn't good enough as we played for years with default rules, not with BRs and no radar (didn't know about MLG rules really) so they couldn't adjust. I also played Street Fighter 2 (ST), 3(s), 4 and Marvel vs Capcom 2,3 semi-professionally (as in I toured to all the regional tournaments and placed in the top three for SF3 and top 10 for MVC2 in my last 2 tournies). Between 2005-2007, I played my ass off and also sponsored others to travel to tournaments (none of them won anything, but it was a huge part of my life). My last tournament was 2010 IIRC and I did pretty well. I always played on the 360, even for MvC2. I was the best Street Fighter 3 player in Ohio and I'm fairly sure throughout the Midwest, and probably still am, but the game isn't played as it was back then.

So I'm not "picking sides" and I'm certainly not a "fanboy." I don't have a dog in the fight, except that I want to own the games I buy. I also hate the idea of paying more for less.. Buying a console for $499 that's only half as powerful as one that's $399 seems like a ripoff. There's quite a few other reasons that have already been mentioned in the thread, but I felt the need to qualify some of the dissent against Microsoft because there have been a few posts discounting that sentiment as fanboy-ism.

Concisely, I agree with Mdog, Microsoft is making a big mistake. The PS1 and PS2 dominated the console market. I think the Wii U has been a colossal failure. I think Sony walks away from this not only with a massive lead in sales, but I think it may help redefine the gaming industry by bringing back a true alternative to Microsoft's systems.

I'm optimistic because Sony is coming back, and Apple's newer machines will have decent GPU's ranging from the iPhone/iPad to the MacBooks. I think this will loosen the stranglehold Microsoft has on the gaming industry, which creates competition, and drives innovation.

 

[Jack Brickman]

I for one don't play either the 360 or PS3 (for gaming) much anymore. For a little background on me I used to play Halo 2 competitively and tried to play in MLG tournies but my team wasn't good enough as we played for years with default rules, not with BRs and no radar (didn't know about MLG rules really) so they couldn't adjust. I also played Street Fighter 2 (ST), 3(s), 4 and Marvel vs Capcom 2,3 semi-professionally (as in I toured to all the regional tournaments and placed in the top three for SF3 and top 10 for MVC2). Between 2005-2007, I played my ass off and also sponsored others to travel to tournaments (none of them won anything, but it was a huge part of my life). My last tournament was 2010 IIRC and I did pretty well. I always played on the 360, even for MvC2.

Nerd.

 

[MalTalm]

Except it won't protect publishers from having their products pirated. SimCity has already been pirated, and easily, because it didn't actually require DRM. EA just added it because, presumably, they're dicks. Diablo 3 actually has pretty effective DRM, but only because many assets in the game are stored on Blizzard servers. Really, the only effective DRM is to essentially make your game an MMO as Blizzard did with Diablo 3 even though it's not an MMO and alienated plenty of fans (myself included...loved the first two Diablo games, did not buy Diablo 3). The downside, of course, is that doing so gives your game a shelf life. I can still play Diablo and Diablo 2 for as long as modern hardware supports them. Diablo 3, on the other hand, is dead the minute Blizzard decides to shut down their servers.

Unless every developer stores assets server side (that won't happen for most games), games will continue to be pirated. The thing is, pirates really aren't the problem. They're an excuse. There is a portion of the population that has never and will never pay for games. Fuck them. Developers need to stop worrying about them and start worrying about the people that actually pay for their games, because those are the people that are punished by these bullshit, ridiculous DRM schemes.

This is a bit inaccurate and a bit misguided. Games which are easily pirated simply are, and it's very damaging for developers. This has always been a bigger issue for PC games than console games, simply because consoles, by their nature, are a bit more restrictive since the hardware is all produced by a company. However, the original Xbox was victim of a significant hack, and people were selling those things preloaded with tons of Xbox games, as well as SNES and NES games at only a fraction more than an Xbox at retail.

How did Microsoft combat that with the 360? Simply by making the online community too good to live without. Xbox Live was a terrific service, but if you wanted to take advantage of it or play games online, your system needed to be clean.

Now Microsoft took it a step further. They're trying to stay ahead of pirates, and felt a check-in system would be highly effective in curtailing piracy. Will a system get hacked? Certainly. I'd give it 2 months after launch. But if it's difficult and restrictive enough, it won't appeal to enough people to be particularly damaging for the system.

You are right that developers need to make sure anti-piracy measures don't harm legitimate consumers though. Once you cross that line, you're hurting business. I just think Microsoft found what might be as close to a good solution as you're going to get. But if you believe piracy is imagined and doesn't really affect the gaming industry, you're wrong. The private market wouldn't invest so heavily into a solution if the cost wasn't justified.

 

[Jack Brickman]

This is a bit inaccurate and a bit misguided. Games which are easily pirated simply are, and it's very damaging for developers. This has always been a bigger issue for PC games than console games, simply because consoles, by their nature, are a bit more restrictive since the hardware is all produced by a company. However, the original Xbox was victim of a significant hack, and people were selling those things preloaded with tons of Xbox games, as well as SNES and NES games at only a fraction more than an Xbox at retail.

How did Microsoft combat that with the 360? Simply by making the online community too good to live without. Xbox Live was a terrific service, but if you wanted to take advantage of it or play games online, your system needed to be clean.

Now Microsoft took it a step further. They're trying to stay ahead of pirates, and felt a check-in system would be highly effective in curtailing piracy. Will a system get hacked? Certainly. I'd give it 2 months after launch. But if it's difficult and restrictive enough, it won't appeal to enough people to be particularly damaging for the system.

You are right that developers need to make sure anti-piracy measures don't harm legitimate consumers though. Once you cross that line, you're hurting business. I just think Microsoft found what might be as close to a good solution as you're going to get. But if you believe piracy is imagined and doesn't really affect the gaming industry, you're wrong. The private market wouldn't invest so heavily into a solution if the cost wasn't justified.

Anti-piracy measures only ever harm legitimate consumers. Unless you're making your single-player game unplayable without connecting to a company server (which also harms paying customers, by the way), you're only harming paying customers with DRM. Your game will be pirated anyway, and the people who won't pay for it won't let DRM stop them.

See, the thing you're not considering is that, by and large, there are two groups of gamers: ones who buy games and ones who don't. There is very little overlap between the two. Sure, there are those that will pirate games to test them out before buying them (essentially demoing a game...I do this from time to time and never complete a game I don't like without buying it), but they really fall into the former group. Either you're willing to pay for a game and will buy it if it's good (even if you pirate it first to test it out) or you're unwilling to pay for it (in which case you only pirate).

Do you have any idea how many games I've bought on Steam simply because they were cheap? Games that I could easily have pirated in five minutes for no charge? Do you have any idea how many other people are just like me? Millions, according to Steam. And, granted, Steam does use DRM, but it's not as awful or draconian as the DRM practiced by many other companies.

The fact is, developers are really only fighting a battle against their best customers. Look at it this way...any customer who is willing to buy a game with shitty DRM would have bought it without that same shitty DRM, but how many customers might have bought the same game without the DRM?

 

[MalTalm]

Anti-piracy measures only ever harm legitimate consumers. Unless you're making your single-player game unplayable without connecting to a company server (which also harms paying customers, by the way), you're only harming paying customers with DRM. Your game will be pirated anyway, and the people who won't pay for it won't let DRM stop them.

See, the thing you're not considering is that, by and large, there are two groups of gamers: ones who buy games and ones who don't. There is very little overlap between the two. Sure, there are those that will pirate games to test them out before buying them (essentially demoing a game...I do this from time to time and never complete a game I don't like without buying it), but they really fall into the former group. Either you're willing to pay for a game and will buy it if it's good (even if you pirate it first to test it out) or you're unwilling to pay for it (in which case you only pirate).

Do you have any idea how many games I've bought on Steam simply because they were cheap? Games that I could easily have pirated in five minutes for no charge? Do you have any idea how many other people are just like me? Millions, according to Steam. And, granted, Steam does use DRM, but it's not as awful or draconian as the DRM practiced by many other companies.

The fact is, developers are really only fighting a battle against their best customers.

This is a logical fallacy seemingly based on your personal situation. There are a confirmed 12.6 million individual houses which download games illegally, and that was a sample taken over a 3 month span. You assume people who pirate games never buy them, but there is evidence that those who pirate games spend a larger percentage of their income on the gaming market than those who don't. The overlap is high. What we can't know is how many games, if they weren't pirated, would be purchased by the offenders?

Any answer to that question will be conjecture, but it won't be 0. There is substantial evidence that a game which is easily pirated tends to be heavily pirated, while games which are more difficult to pirate less so. There was a game studio who went out of business about 6 years ago, I can't remember the name (Imagination studios? Something like that) which, for every 3 copies of a game they legitimately sold, there were 100 failed attempts to download a pirated version. This has always been a bigger issue for PC gaming as opposed to console gaming because you need to get your physical box modded if you want to play pirated games when it comes to consoles. But if it's easy enough, people are more than willing to do it. I mentioned the original Xbox earlier, and a google search for xbox 360 mod chip makes it clear there's plenty of interest in modding the current system as well.

Steam has found a great, effective way to protect game producers without harming the consumer, and it's been rewarded generously. Those great sales you get? They're available, in part, because the developers aren't losing a ton of profitability from piracy.

And look, I'm not defending the worst of the DRM practices out there. SimCity and Diablo 3 (both of which I've bought) were disasters from a DRM perspective. Always on connectivity, and saving your data on company servers is terrible for the consumer. Short of MMOs which can justify this practice simply because it's a necessary mechanism in game use, it should never be utilized. Of course, the Xbox One's DRM isn't like that. Again, it simply needs a single bit of data sent to a server once every 24 hours. Nothing is being stored on Microsoft's servers, nothing requires a constant internet connection (unless you are playing online) and nothing should damage your ability to play games on your schedule at your convenience. In exchange, developers will be able to make a bit more money per unit shipped, which gives them a slightly longer leash to explore new game mechanics, create original titles or provide game sales, all of which benefits the consumer.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Steam has found a great, effective way to protect game producers without harming the consumer, and it's been rewarded generously. Those great sales you get? They're available, in part, because the developers aren't losing a ton of profitability from piracy.

I disagree. Almost every game on Steam is easily pirated, and Steam certainly isn't a very effective DRM for stopping it. I've pirated games that have Steamworks dozens of times without any issue whatsoever. Steam is successful for two reasons: 1. Everyone loves Valve and 2. They offer ridiculously good sales regularly. Neither has anything to do with the Steam DRM, which is obviously very easy to crack for any game which doesn't require a sever-side connection.

I also disagree with your (non-quoted) assumption that developers go out of business due to piracy. They go out of business because they don't make good games, aren't marketed properly, or don't respect their customers. Piracy is an easy excuse, but it's not the real problem. If you make quality games and also respect your customers, you'll make a profit in the PC market. CD Projekt RED is a perfect example of this. Their fans will literally deride anyone who claims to have pirated one of The Witcher games. Valve may be the only PC gaming developer who has more vocal fans. Both companies, of course, make great games and have great PR.

Edit: I'm also willing to bet more gamers are like me than you think. In college, I pirated games all the time because I couldn't afford them. Now that I can afford any game I want, I only pirate games to try them out to see if they're worth buying. If they are, I pay for them. If they're not, I delete them and move on to something else. I can't help but imagine most gamers fall into one of those two groups. Not everyone is a soulless pirate. Many just can't afford games, and they wouldn't buy them either way because, duh, they can't afford them.

 

[FiveThous]

I disagree. Almost every game on Steam is easily pirated, and Steam certainly isn't a very effective DRM for stopping it. I've pirated games that have Steamworks dozens of times without any issue whatsoever. Steam is successful for two reasons: 1. Everyone loves Valve and 2. They offer ridiculously good sales regularly. Neither has anything to do with the Steam DRM, which is obviously very easy to crack for any game which doesn't require a sever-side connection.

I also disagree with your (non-quoted) assumption that developers go out of business due to piracy. They go out of business because they don't make good games, aren't marketed properly, or don't respect their customers. Piracy is an easy excuse, but it's not the real problem. If you make quality games and also respect your customers, you'll make a profit in the PC market. CD Projekt RED is a perfect example of this. Their fans will literally deride anyone who claims to have pirated one of The Witcher games. Valve may be the only PC gaming developer who has more vocal fans. Both companies, of course, make great games and have great PR.

Edit: I'm also willing to bet more gamers are like me than you think. In college, I pirated games all the time because I couldn't afford them. Now that I can afford any game I want, I only pirate games to try them out to see if they're worth buying. If they are, I pay for them. If they're not, I delete them and move on to something else. I can't help but imagine most gamers fall into one of those two groups. Not everyone is a soulless pirate. Many just can't afford games, and they wouldn't buy them either way because, duh, they can't afford them.

Piracy is a federal offense, arrest this man!

 

[Jack Brickman]

Piracy is a federal offense, arrest this man!

Pfft...I'm wealthy and white. Good luck.

 

[gourimoko]

This is a bit inaccurate and a bit misguided. Games which are easily pirated simply are, and it's very damaging for developers. This has always been a bigger issue for PC games than console games, simply because consoles, by their nature, are a bit more restrictive since the hardware is all produced by a company. However, the original Xbox was victim of a significant hack, and people were selling those things preloaded with tons of Xbox games, as well as SNES and NES games at only a fraction more than an Xbox at retail.

How did Microsoft combat that with the 360? Simply by making the online community too good to live without. Xbox Live was a terrific service, but if you wanted to take advantage of it or play games online, your system needed to be clean.

Now Microsoft took it a step further. They're trying to stay ahead of pirates, and felt a check-in system would be highly effective in curtailing piracy. Will a system get hacked? Certainly. I'd give it 2 months after launch. But if it's difficult and restrictive enough, it won't appeal to enough people to be particularly damaging for the system.

You are right that developers need to make sure anti-piracy measures don't harm legitimate consumers though. Once you cross that line, you're hurting business. I just think Microsoft found what might be as close to a good solution as you're going to get. But if you believe piracy is imagined and doesn't really affect the gaming industry, you're wrong. The private market wouldn't invest so heavily into a solution if the cost wasn't justified.

I'm pretty sure the Microsoft approach to DRM has nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with GameStop and transitioning profits from retailers back to publishers.

Also, keep in mind, developers will not necessarily make money from the new Xbox One DRM approach. Developers and publishers are different entities and many developers don't make any money at all from DLC or online content because the development of such is negotiated in the original contract. Most developers are paid to write the game and may get some performance incentives based on sales, but this isn't the case for most. Once the game is written, if the publisher owns the artist/content license, they usually reap the continual benefits.

 

[gourimoko]

This is a logical fallacy seemingly based on your personal situation. There are a confirmed 12.6 million individual houses which download games illegally, and that was a sample taken over a 3 month span. You assume people who pirate games never buy them, but there is evidence that those who pirate games spend a larger percentage of their income on the gaming market than those who don't. The overlap is high. What we can't know is how many games, if they weren't pirated, would be purchased by the offenders?

Any answer to that question will be conjecture, but it won't be 0. There is substantial evidence that a game which is easily pirated tends to be heavily pirated, while games which are more difficult to pirate less so. There was a game studio who went out of business about 6 years ago, I can't remember the name (Imagination studios? Something like that) which, for every 3 copies of a game they legitimately sold, there were 100 failed attempts to download a pirated version. This has always been a bigger issue for PC gaming as opposed to console gaming because you need to get your physical box modded if you want to play pirated games when it comes to consoles. But if it's easy enough, people are more than willing to do it. I mentioned the original Xbox earlier, and a google search for xbox 360 mod chip makes it clear there's plenty of interest in modding the current system as well.

Steam has found a great, effective way to protect game producers without harming the consumer, and it's been rewarded generously. Those great sales you get? They're available, in part, because the developers aren't losing a ton of profitability from piracy.

And look, I'm not defending the worst of the DRM practices out there. SimCity and Diablo 3 (both of which I've bought) were disasters from a DRM perspective. Always on connectivity, and saving your data on company servers is terrible for the consumer. Short of MMOs which can justify this practice simply because it's a necessary mechanism in game use, it should never be utilized. Of course, the Xbox One's DRM isn't like that. Again, it simply needs a single bit of data sent to a server once every 24 hours. Nothing is being stored on Microsoft's servers, nothing requires a constant internet connection (unless you are playing online) and nothing should damage your ability to play games on your schedule at your convenience. In exchange, developers will be able to make a bit more money per unit shipped, which gives them a slightly longer leash to explore new game mechanics, create original titles or provide game sales, all of which benefits the consumer.

Can you tell me where you got that figure. I remember several statistics that put modified Xbox 360 penetration at no greater than 6% nationwide prior to the mass ban in 2010. PS3 was significantly less until late 2011.

 

[gourimoko]

The only difference between Microsoft and Apple is the need to log in online once every 24 hours.

No it's not. If you buy content from iTunes, it's yours, you own it. You can transfer it to any device you see fit. Cannot understand how you think that's similar to Microsoft's locked down DRM? I can transfer all my content from my iPad to my PC without any assistance from Apple, via iTunes, offline.

This still wouldn't be realistic with devices like iPods, but it makes a ton of sense with a home console designed to be most effective when connected to the internet in the first place.

Your point goes away when you consider that iPhones and most iPads are almost always online, at least once a day.

The point made about iTunes refers to your inability to sell a song or album purchased off iTunes to another user. The right to resell your music is held by Apple. Are there ways around it? Probably, but certainly not endorsed by Apple.

Not talking about resale, as that's a different concept. Simply talking about transferability. You could argue that buying any digital download and reselling it is illegal, but no company thus far has taken steps that prevent you from doing so. You can transfer content from one device to another, and again this isn't about resale but the concept of some level of ownership. Microsoft is saying you have no rights over the media you purchased whatsoever, I have a problem with that.

And I still struggle to see how logging in online once every 24 hours is inconvenient for most American consumers.

Hasn't really anything to do with inconvenience, but if you want to go that route I can say that in my old apartment I did not use a Wifi router. My PC was connected directly to the coax modem and I do not use the Surfboard Wifi capabilities as they are poor. I didn't need or want Wifi in my house at the time until I decided to redo my home theater and the distance between the TV and the PC became an issue so I went with wifi. With the Xbox One, it must have some level of connectivity, so if you don't use wifi in your home, it has to be wired in. That is an inconvenience, even for power users like myself.

It serves to help protect publishers from having their products pirated, without providing draconian style DRM we've seen in games like Diablo 3 and SimCity.

But it doesn't. Any single-player game will still be able to be pirated. You really think the Xbox One won't be cracked? We're still going to be seeing piracy and console banning. Not much will change.

And saying Apple has went out of their way to protect consumer ownership rights is laughable. They've been at the forefront of reducing digital sharing of data for some time, instead forcing consumers to purchase items directly from apple for themselves. At $1 a song, it's a reasonable request and again one I don't take umbrage with, but let's not exaggerate their choices as being consumer-friendly.

And if you can find where I said "Apple has went out of their way to protect" anything I'd agree. I used Apple as an example considering you mentioned the AppleTV and thereby iTunes which I use regularly. Your point was that it's no different than what Microsoft is implementing, but it is, in many ways different.