Activision the First to Completely Block Games From PS4 Share Play

[Brittany Vincent]

Activision the First to Completely Block Games From PS4 Share Play

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Call of Duty: Ghosts have been made completely unable to be played over Share Play.

It's only been available for a week and a half, but one company has already moved to block their content from using the PlayStation 4 Share Play feature, which allows a player to "pass" their controller to a friend over PSN so that they can try out or help with a game. However, it has been found that Activision has made the decision to utilize the ability that Sony gives developers to block certain areas of the game from being shared to simply block the whole game.

When attempting to use Share Play on Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, the system displays the following message:

"The host's game screen is not displayed because the current scene is a blocked scene for Share Play. Wait until the blocked scene has finished."

It has also been reported that Call of Duty: Ghosts also does not allow players to utilize Share Play, returning the following message:

"Viewing the game screen that the host is currently playing is not allowed due to content restrictions in your country or region. If the host starts a game that you can view, the game screen will be displayed."

While Sony has stated that Share Play is available for all developers, they do have the choice to disable it.

Activision has stated that they did not have access to Share Play assets before it launched. The company explained that it made the decision to block it from their Call of Duty titles until they can test the game's compatibility with Share Play enough to determine whether or not they would be able to implement it without diminishing the experience of those games.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-11-06-call-of-duty-advanced-warfare-call-of-duty-ghosts-block-ps4-share-play]

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[Silvianoshei]

The company went on to explain that it made the decision to block it from their Call of Duty titles until they can test the game's compatibility with Share Play enough to determine whether or not they would be able to implement it without diminishing the experience of those games.

...or diminishing the profits.

 

[LysanderNemoinis]

Wait...so LESS people will be exposed to Call of Duty than might otherwise be? Sounds like a win to me.

 

[gigastar]

Though one wonders what part of Call of Duty is worth sharing in the first place.

It would have made more sense for them to do this to Destiny, or is that irredeemably dead now?

 

[Something Amyss]

The quotes I'd seen before weren't about access to the kit but performance issues, so now I'm wondering if Activision is talking out both sides of their mouths.

Then again, I'm pretty sure Sony said that this was a feature that everyone would be doing previously, so they may not be alone.

Wait...so LESS people will be exposed to Call of Duty than might otherwise be? Sounds like a win to me.

But now people might be inclined to seek it out themselves.

Seriously, promotion of CoD could have been the best way to stem the tide of purchases!

 

[ddrkreature]

Not surprised in the least. In this day and age, free advertising is a sin and playing with your friends in the same room is a privilege. If EA didn't do this, I'd be very shocked. Same with ubisoft

 

[Isalan]

This is presumably to stop people blowing through the 5 hour campaign on a friends Playstation while they're at work. Guess they'll have to find a real funeral to press X at.

 

[LaochEire]

This is presumably to stop people blowing through the 5 hour campaign on a friends Playstation while they're at work. Guess they'll have to find a real funeral to press X at.

Can only play for an hour before the session needs to be rehosted. That's to stop situations like that.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

That line about not having assets sounds like such a lie the devil would blush. If they think it would "diminish the experience" of the game, I'm sure both parties would understand that lag was the probable culprit. If they don't get it working, no other Activision game for the PS4 should be without the feature, because there is not an excuse to "not have the assets" when the teams working any new games should have up to date dev kits.

This does not surprise me. I've watched, in the the past decade, games go from 4 players on one system and online with only one screen name to only two players and one screen name, if going online, and some game going as far as both players needing to log in or only one player per console. They simply want more money. I'd almost put money down on DLC enabling more than the out of box player amount coming out in the next few years, if the evil that is streaming doesn't come out first.

 

[Strazdas]

This is presumably to stop people blowing through the 5 hour campaign on a friends Playstation while they're at work. Guess they'll have to find a real funeral to press X at.

Can only play for an hour before the session needs to be rehosted. That's to stop situations like that.

cant you just continually rehost it though? i mean there are savegames and all. or does the friend actively need to do smething to let you in for an hour?

on steam you can play family shared library provided the developer allows it (not all games can be shared) and that the account that owns the game isnt playing anything. no need for hourly reconnects. have to be online to check whether the actual owner is playing something or not obviuosly.

 

[Oly J]

don't have a PS4 yet, but I wasn't even aware of the share play feature, it sounds like an awesome feature, it also sounds like blocking it arbitrarily is exactly what "certain" companies would do, there's nothing I can say here that hasn't been said, they're blatantly worried that any free access at all will diminish sales.

 

[mysecondlife]

I remember playing special ops in Modern Warfare 2 with my roommate and had great fun with it. They should certainly be able to have specific parts of the game as share-play because the game can really benefit from it.

 

[LaochEire]

This is presumably to stop people blowing through the 5 hour campaign on a friends Playstation while they're at work. Guess they'll have to find a real funeral to press X at.

Can only play for an hour before the session needs to be rehosted. That's to stop situations like that.

cant you just continually rehost it though? i mean there are savegames and all. or does the friend actively need to do smething to let you in for an hour?

on steam you can play family shared library provided the developer allows it (not all games can be shared) and that the account that owns the game isnt playing anything. no need for hourly reconnects. have to be online to check whether the actual owner is playing something or not obviuosly.

Playstaion has two different setups for this. Firstly, you can register 2 PS3's and, as of now, unlimited PS4's to a PSN account. Both those devices can access the library of the main account holder and have full unrestricted access. They get all their digital library and DLC. So if you and your brother/mother/sister/father owned a PS3 they can give your account access to their digital library. you download the games and play, or just give them the disc. Online pass and DLC can be downloaded too for disc games. This feature is restricted to family only and gamesharing with everyone can result in your account being banned. Doesn't stop a lot of people though.

It's like the Steam thing, but actually less restrictive in most regards. No need for main account to be online or not be playing anything, etc. All you have to do in log into the main account, get the games on your PS3 and then you can log back into yours and play them. Even main account holder can play at the same time.

Share Play is like having a friend over and giving them a controller to play. So if you and your friend are online playing games he might say, what's The Last of Us like? You can can say, here try it for yourself. Play it for an hour or something. He can save the game and it's available to anyone on your friends list meaning you could add me or anyone from here on PSN and ask for a go on games that I or they own. However, you can only play for an hour before the session closes, but you can instantly rehost the session and play for another hour at the same point your friend left off. So technically, it could be used to breeze through quick easy single player games, but you can't leave it on overnight or something as the host needs to rehost every hour.

It can be abused like gamesharing feature above too I suppose. It's a nifty feature to be honest. I saw my own friend playing the Evil Within the other day. I jumped in while he went away for dinner and played 40mins. Enough for me to know it's not a game I'd rush out and buy. You can be in chat with your friend watching them and talking to them or just switch over to the TV.

 

[Strazdas]

Playstaion has two different setups for this. Firstly, you can register 2 PS3's and, as of now, unlimited PS4's to a PSN account. Both those devices can access the library of the main account holder and have full unrestricted access. They get all their digital library and DLC. So if you and your brother/mother/sister/father owned a PS3 they can give your account access to their digital library. you download the games and play, or just give them the disc. Online pass and DLC can be downloaded too for disc games. This feature is restricted to family only and gamesharing with everyone can result in your account being banned. Doesn't stop a lot of people though.

It's like the Steam thing, but actually less restrictive in most regards. No need for main account to be online or not be playing anything, etc. All you have to do in log into the main account, get the games on your PS3 and then you can log back into yours and play them. Even main account holder can play at the same time.

Share Play is like having a friend over and giving them a controller to play. So if you and your friend are online playing games he might say, what's The Last of Us like? You can can say, here try it for yourself. Play it for an hour or something. He can save the game and it's available to anyone on your friends list meaning you could add me or anyone from here on PSN and ask for a go on games that I or they own. However, you can only play for an hour before the session closes, but you can instantly rehost the session and play for another hour at the same point your friend left off. So technically, it could be used to breeze through quick easy single player games, but you can't leave it on overnight or something as the host needs to rehost every hour.

It can be abused like gamesharing feature above too I suppose. It's a nifty feature to be honest. I saw my own friend playing the Evil Within the other day. I jumped in while he went away for dinner and played 40mins. Enough for me to know it's not a game I'd rush out and buy. You can be in chat with your friend watching them and talking to them or just switch over to the TV.

That sounds pretty neat actually. though as you point out the family share is ripe for abuse. thank you for extensive explanation. I see why this couldnt be used to play COD while somoens at work now, makes sense i guess. Still does not make sense for activision to block them though. As nintendo once said about used games - want people not to do it - make better games.