Assassin's Creed Creator: Microsoft Didn't Need To Mention Internet

[BunnyKillBot]

Besides, he says, most hardcore gamers will pick up both consoles anyway

Erm, WHAT? Not at these price points they bloomin well won't. Add up all the optional extras, subscription services, DLC, game prices etc and you have enough for a gaming grade laptop/computer with more consumer choice and less DRM/Restrictive policy bull.

If I am going to get it in the rear parking lot, i'd rather only be taken once please, and thats what this generation of console releases comes down to.

 

[Olas]

Basically he's saying Microsoft didn't do a good enough job misinforming and confusing the public? And what's all this "the future is digital" nonsense? We weren't complaining about the XBox One going digital, we were complaining about shitty anti-consumer policies.

It's like if a guy tries to rob a bank with a laser rifle and then in court defends himself by explaining that laser rifles are the way of the future.
We're not angry about the technology Microsoft was using, we're angry about what they were doing with it. Mandatory 24 hour check ins to play offline singleplayer games isn't a necessary part of going digital, none of the Kinnect BS that is now a required part of the console is part of going digital, you can argue that going digital makes sharing and reselling games more tricky, but either make it work or don't force it on us. You should only implement new technology if it's going to improve your products, not make them unarguably worse.

Also, this is a bit off topic but do you guys really need to release an Assassin's Creed every single year? I get that it's proved to be a popular series but surely even you must be getting tired of it by now.

I mean even Nintendo waits 4 or 5 years between each Zelda title, and usually makes dramatic changes each time. You've already made more Assassin's

Why not take a break, make a different game and then come back to the series in a few years when you've had enough time to come up with some

 

[JenSeven]

most hardcore gamers will pick up both consoles anyway.

Yup, a PS4 and a WiiU.

This guy is talking out of his arse and I've had enough of his kind.

 

[Lightknight]

most hardcore gamers will pick up both consoles anyway.

Yup, a PS4 and a WiiU.

This guy is talking out of his arse and I've had enough of his kind.

Well, I'm not going to lie, I likely will get both consoles but the second one will be year 4 when all the exclusive titles that I want to play have already been out for that long. But I hardly expect the average gamer to get both and especially not day one.

 

[Xan Krieger]

When this guy is talking about the future he's probably talking about a future after all of us are dead because there are plenty of places where you either can't get an internet connection or the only one you can get is really slow and unreliable. Whether he likes it or not you can't have an all digital future unless you're willing to lose a ton of customers.

 

[Strazdas]

so basically he says they they should have hidden their arbitrary DRM from the consumer? i wonder where i saw that before AC2

2. With the ability to play the game while it is being downloaded, a lot of concerns are alleviated. We still need to be able to have MUCH larger HDDs than 500GB, especially if games start creeping up over the 50GB mark in this coming generation. But depending on how well playing while it's still downloading works, we could be talking about gameplay as instant as installing from disk. I wonder how that would work in multiplayer games, surely nearly the whole thing would have to be downloaded... right?

2. Really, has the patience of the gamer have degraded so much that you cant wait for 30 minutes for a download to finish after buying a game? Even if the answer is yes, you have pre-loading, when you can downlaod it a week before the release and just let it sit on your hdd waiting for the clock to tick the release day midnight. Thats how games get leaked weeks before release actually, preloading. And we have much larger HDDS, people running pcs START at 2 TB. But consoles as always try to shorthand its costumers on storage space. i mean we still got some using card memory for gods sake. complaining that consoles have low HDD space is like going to vinyl store and complaining they dont have dvds only.
also unless they are inventing a whole new way of asset storage in game design, the game as you download is bullshit. game assets dont work this way.

Just because retail game stores are closing doesn't mean people are taking to digital. They're just ordering retail copies from Amazon or whatever for cheaper than what they'd get at a store.

well statistics show a step increase in percentage of games sold digitally, and thats even ignoring steam numbers since they refuse to disclose the sale count. digital download is definatelly on the rise and if i remember correctly there is as much digital sales as retail ones by now. The reason i buy digital is simply comfort. i dont need to search for the disc, order it, wait for a week for it to ship and pay enormous shipping costs when i can buy it online and be playing in a couple of minutes. now i know not everyone can do that, and thus retailers still exist. but really instead of fighting digital you should isntead fight your ISP for not providing you decent and cheap internet.

 

[Holythirteen]

Is he actually saying that they should have just snuck it in without mentioning it?

Is he actually THAT much of a tool?

It does seem like that, doesn't it?

I'm gonna pretend, for the sake of argument, that he means to say microsoft could've presented their fascist online DRM scheme in a better way. That seems more like something a sane, intelligent person would say.

Gotta agree with that part though, M$'s execution on this grand design was a cluster-love of stupid. You can't take stuff away from us and convince us that it's for our benefit without showing us the benefits. The message they sent was "screw you guys we're doing this deal-with-it", rather than showing us how game-sharing, cloud computing and cheaper digital titles could be good for games. Better to force it down our throats and work out the kinks later than actually try to make these systems work well. I think we have Diablo 3 and Simcity to thank for that, despite all the bitching, gamers were lining up to get screwed by these games.

 

[EstrogenicMuscle]

Yeah, because people wouldn't have gotten extremely upset if they bought the system, took it home, and discovered this.

Microsoft would have sunk themselves if they didn't let it out they would have been crucified by angry customers. And far more irreparable damage would have been done to the Microsoft brand if that happened. Because the system would have already been launched and press would be scathing and the best they could do is refund customers and launch a new system or give an offline mode patch. At least by announcing, and learning consumers would not accept this junk, they have been able to save themselves some. Avoiding telling customers that their device contains something that they would never be okay with would DESTROY the XBOX One. Truly.

Yeah, we're moving to a digital world all right. They're no denying that. That doesn't make any excuses for DRM that doesn't serve customers in any way at all. No amount of technological advancement or the mainstreaming of digital distribution will justify physical copies of games being un-allowed to be shared. Or an entire piece of hardware that doesn't function at all offline.

I have a smartphone, a little device that people use as proof that always online is the answer. But because I bought a new cell phone, the old one isn't connected to a cell phone plan at all. The only online use it has, is when I have it hooked up to an wifi-connection. But sometimes I don't even have a wi-fi connection. But games made from reasonable developers who don't put DRM junk in their games, don't require me to go online to play the game. I can just play the game. Thus the smartphone plays games as an offline device. It doesn't need a data plan, it doesn't need wi-fi, it doesn't need internet to do things. And that's the way things should be.

Internet should always be an option for things that don't require the internet to function. There is no worthwhile service that an always on console provides. There is no consumer benefit to the 24 hour checks or the blocking used games.

 

[DSK-]

I wonder how long he has left in his current employment; How long until he gets Orthed?

From my understanding he has already been let go and is currently suing Ubisoft over the rights to the game Ubisoft purchased. Class act.

A couple of notes:
1) As many have said, MS would have been way worse off if they hadn't said anything because then they'd have all the hate from both having it and from hiding it.
2) We'd probably be a lot more inclined to listen to this "digital future" discussion if the people talking weren't such tools about it, or showed even the slightest bit of understanding for who they're marketing to and the legitimate concerns people have.
3) We'd probably also be more inclined to pay attention if we didn't have perfect examples of everything that is wrong with the system. Case and point: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125526-Darkspore-Gone-Forever-Due-to-Abandoned-DRM

2. With the ability to play the game while it is being downloaded, a lot of concerns are alleviated. We still need to be able to have MUCH larger HDDs than 500GB, especially if games start creeping up over the 50GB mark in this coming generation. But depending on how well playing while it's still downloading works, we could be talking about gameplay as instant as installing from disk. I wonder how that would work in multiplayer games, surely nearly the whole thing would have to be downloaded... right?

3. This is a real cost to all this necessary online crap. Oh EA, you're the worst of the worst, it's almost laughably bad in that, "what will they do next" kind of three stooges way.

Ahh you're right. I wondered why his name rang a bell. Thanks for the reminder, chum!

 

[Lightknight]

2. With the ability to play the game while it is being downloaded, a lot of concerns are alleviated. We still need to be able to have MUCH larger HDDs than 500GB, especially if games start creeping up over the 50GB mark in this coming generation. But depending on how well playing while it's still downloading works, we could be talking about gameplay as instant as installing from disk. I wonder how that would work in multiplayer games, surely nearly the whole thing would have to be downloaded... right?

2. Really, has the patience of the gamer have degraded so much that you cant wait for 30 minutes for a download to finish after buying a game? Even if the answer is yes, you have pre-loading, when you can downlaod it a week before the release and just let it sit on your hdd waiting for the clock to tick the release day midnight. Thats how games get leaked weeks before release actually, preloading. And we have much larger HDDS, people running pcs START at 2 TB. But consoles as always try to shorthand its costumers on storage space. i mean we still got some using card memory for gods sake. complaining that consoles have low HDD space is like going to vinyl store and complaining they dont have dvds only.
also unless they are inventing a whole new way of asset storage in game design, the game as you download is bullshit. game assets dont work this way.

The difference in this current generation is potentially more than a day at current average internet rates in the US as opposed to a few minutes while a disk installs the local game content. Considering that disks cost VERY little to make and ship and those costs are included in the retail price, there is little to no reason to go with a digital download if disks are available. Getting rid of the disks just forces gamers to pick a less preferable option.

If the size of games goes up, this problem will only get worse. As I mentioned earlier, the Uncharted 3 file size was 40GB and that's current gen. If the ps4 is able to read Bluray layers with more than 50GB total then we should start seeing MUCH larger game files as the games begin to have much more detailed assets. If I recall, Sony already developed the tech to store 1TB on two layers of Bluray disks so it isn't unreasonable to see bluray players reading 250GB on two layers even if they can't read 4x layers.

Now, even given your inexhaustible amount of stoic patience I'm sure that you'd like the option to play some games when you buy it instead of having to wait for what could be days depending on how big game files start to get with more powerful systems available for developers to hammer. I'd think you'd also like to avoid having a console gobbling up the internet for those days if you enjoy some streaming services or online gaming. Even if you don't notice a difference in your streaming services, you'd then be extending the time of the download. In an area where the internet connection speed is 10mbps or less and the file is something like 140GB you would literally get a shipment from Amazon sooner and be able to play it more quickly.

Developers are trying to convince us that we want this so that they can have all the control over their titles. Their goal really is to get rid of the preowned market and unlike the movie industry, there's few enough machines to make it happen easily. If they are really able to handle prices the way steam does, I wouldn't care. But more likely than not they'll do no such thing and so I'll simply purchase fewer games.

 

[darksakul]

never buying an Assassin's Creed game ever again!

You Stole the words right out of my mouth.

Are the PR reps on vacation or something! This is exactly what you don't want say to the general public!

"Microsoft should not have brought up the always online." If that had happened, nobody in their right mind would ever buy their console. We wouldn't have seen a policy reversal, or the return of physical discs. Sure they lost the sharing option but oh well! Going completely digital still has some horrific downsides that need to be addressed before making it a MAIN feature in a console.

I will however agree with this statement: Microsoft was trying something different, and suffered for it, but that doesn't mean Microsoft was doing the wrong thing. It just means Microsoft was incredibly bad at expressing itself, and lost out as a result.

I do want to add is Microsoft's arrogance and blatant disregard for the current state of the internet infrastructure.
Many ISPs now have limit caps on how much bandwidth you can use per month. How that plays in with an Always online connection? Did Microsoft realize that more than Half the country lacks quality broadband internet.
Also 3G/4G cellphone networks make lousy replacements for broadband gaming.

 

[Strazdas]

The difference in this current generation is potentially more than a day at current average internet rates in the US as opposed to a few minutes while a disk installs the local game content. Considering that disks cost VERY little to make and ship and those costs are included in the retail price, there is little to no reason to go with a digital download if disks are available. Getting rid of the disks just forces gamers to pick a less preferable option.

If the size of games goes up, this problem will only get worse. As I mentioned earlier, the Uncharted 3 file size was 40GB and that's current gen. If the ps4 is able to read Bluray layers with more than 50GB total then we should start seeing MUCH larger game files as the games begin to have much more detailed assets. If I recall, Sony already developed the tech to store 1TB on two layers of Bluray disks so it isn't unreasonable to see bluray players reading 250GB on two layers even if they can't read 4x layers.

Now, even given your inexhaustible amount of stoic patience I'm sure that you'd like the option to play some games when you buy it instead of having to wait for what could be days depending on how big game files start to get with more powerful systems available for developers to hammer. I'd think you'd also like to avoid having a console gobbling up the internet for those days if you enjoy some streaming services or online gaming. Even if you don't notice a difference in your streaming services, you'd then be extending the time of the download. In an area where the internet connection speed is 10mbps or less and the file is something like 140GB you would literally get a shipment from Amazon sooner and be able to play it more quickly.

Developers are trying to convince us that we want this so that they can have all the control over their titles. Their goal really is to get rid of the preowned market and unlike the movie industry, there's few enough machines to make it happen easily. If they are really able to handle prices the way steam does, I wouldn't care. But more likely than not they'll do no such thing and so I'll simply purchase fewer games.

True, the US internet inftrastructure does seem to be decades behind the rest of the world, so if you are from US this will negatively inpact you highly.
A stamped disck costs very little. the box, cover, all the fancy paint costs more, and the actual shipping of physical copies are even more costly. when we talk about retail beign mroe expensive it is not the disc that costs. iut is the shipping, and the most costly part - shelf-space. the shelfspace at the store costs more than the actual physical copy. yes, they are included in retail price, and IF they would be excluded from digital download, you woudl see a clear price difference. but right now it is now.
There are plenty of reasons to pick digital over physical. granted, most of them are subjective, but subjective reasons are why we buy games to begin with.
Size increase will get it worse, yes, however if your ISPs would not be trying to extort you like coal miners you would have your internet speeds increase faster than game sizes.
Yes, 50 GB blue ray games can and very likely will be a reality, however they may as well take much longer off the disc as well. the 1 TB Blue Ray disc i have not heard of, interesting. I always though they are limited to 50 gb per layer at current disc size.

True, in areas of slow internet connection (bellow 10 mbps) this may hamper the other services and take much longer to download. but like i said, thats what preloading is made for. you cant paly the game till launch day anyway, but it downloads a week ahead and you can play it the minute launch day comes. you would nto be getting it sooner anyway (except piracy that usually leaks before release). While yes i can see appear of buy and play instantly, if you wanted that there was OnLive. wasnt popular though. And once again it comes down to patience. Personally i plan ahead, im the kind of person that got more games than time, so i pre-download/install the game a few days before i plan to turn it on to begin with. now it course that wouldnt work for everyone as some people just go trolling internet for a new game to play.
your example would mean that at 10mbps a 140 gb file would be downlaoded in 31,(1) hours. that is a bit more than oen day. amazon shipment takes up to two weeks here.

The way we want digital and the way developers want it are extremely different, and thus steam is pretty much the only digital services that realyl suceeded (well ok GOG did too). and thats becuase they went the way consumers and not developers want. its not so much as we dont want digital future, we want digital future that woudl benefit us instead of game publishers.

Cpacha: right left
indecisive capcha?

 

[DJonos]

Amen brother. Good to see people still thing for themselves and don't just accept whatever microsoft (or sony for that matter) sais they 'must do'.
Hell I'm a Mac user but I still manage to play very d*mn game I want. Times are changing, for the better this time.