Poll: Worst gaming trend?
- Thread starter EmperorZinyak
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I voted for Online only DRM, but I'm going to take it a step further and say any game that requires any sort of online activation for it to be playable.
Both of those requires that the company maintains an active server to verify that you are allowed to play the game that you bought.
I have no problems with downloading games digitally, as a supplement or even main form of acquiring your entertainment.
The issue comes when a company inevitability takes down their server.
They have no obligation to patch out the DRM in question and no one can say exactly when they do it, just that it will.
That game you bought 2 years ago? yeah, not profitable enough, time to drop it.
It leaves no long-term viability for experiencing some of what could be very iconic but niche games.
Unless you buy their rebrand/boot/HD version...until they shut that down as well..
Both of those requires that the company maintains an active server to verify that you are allowed to play the game that you bought.
I have no problems with downloading games digitally, as a supplement or even main form of acquiring your entertainment.
The issue comes when a company inevitability takes down their server.
They have no obligation to patch out the DRM in question and no one can say exactly when they do it, just that it will.
That game you bought 2 years ago? yeah, not profitable enough, time to drop it.
It leaves no long-term viability for experiencing some of what could be very iconic but niche games.
Unless you buy their rebrand/boot/HD version...until they shut that down as well..
Man it's hard to just pick one of those.
In the past I would have said Online-only DRM but I feel that the backlash against that has thankfully seemed to reduce the prevalence of it recently. I'm going to opt for microtransactions - they seem to be on the rise and in a lot of full-price releases for this latest generation of consoles which I'm finding a worrying trend. I don't want to see options to buy my way though a full-price game, I find it very off-putting and often immersion-breaking. I also don't think that just because you don't buy microtransactions it won't affect the game. The people who make and publish the game want you to spend money on them and I don't want to rely on them not to slow the pace of the game down an turn it into a grind.
In the past I would have said Online-only DRM but I feel that the backlash against that has thankfully seemed to reduce the prevalence of it recently. I'm going to opt for microtransactions - they seem to be on the rise and in a lot of full-price releases for this latest generation of consoles which I'm finding a worrying trend. I don't want to see options to buy my way though a full-price game, I find it very off-putting and often immersion-breaking. I also don't think that just because you don't buy microtransactions it won't affect the game. The people who make and publish the game want you to spend money on them and I don't want to rely on them not to slow the pace of the game down an turn it into a grind.
Online only has bothered me the most, i'm fine with my PC lagging, there is noone to blame but me, but when the game is unplayable because of my internet provider or the game server it's another matter and who knows how long those servers will be around for, perhaps in a year or two you wont be able to play the game that you purchased.
Microtransactions. If they put that in to the game then they probably made sure your progress goes very slowly. That kinda crap has no business in sp games.
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I don't mind microtransactions in F2P games (unless it is pay to win, in that case it is just bad game design), but it is just microtransaction in AAA premium games that really irritate me. I am happy to buy DLC, I am happy to buy expansion packs, but when you start to ask for money for things that used to be in the "used to be a cheat code" category (ie, all collectibles on a map, additional skins etc), then that is just disgusting. You can't have your cake and eat it too. I get that you say "well microtransaction are optional", but when there is a chance to make a quick buck, who is to say that the devs haven't borked the progression system to make the microtransactions look better?
Honourable mention: Early Access. This is a time when some unheard of developer can make a very basic product, throw it onto steam, throw in a bunch of "promises", ask about £20 for it, and then never touch it again after you have raked in a few £1000. See The Stomping Land. There are some honest games out there (Prison Architect), but there are a lot of dead end projects too, and they give early access a bad name overall.
Honourable mention: Early Access. This is a time when some unheard of developer can make a very basic product, throw it onto steam, throw in a bunch of "promises", ask about £20 for it, and then never touch it again after you have raked in a few £1000. See The Stomping Land. There are some honest games out there (Prison Architect), but there are a lot of dead end projects too, and they give early access a bad name overall.
Well the only one I think is actually a malicious and bad thing is the "misleading trailers" one (because "misleading" implies an actual attempt to be deceitful). It's the only one I see in that list that has no potentially good value in it. Unless you count something like Spec-Ops but even then, it sure wasn't the trailer that allowed that game to explode into what it became.
Every other item on this list is nothing but a tool. Said tool can be used in good ways, even if many big developers don't use them correctly. However, it's not the hammers fault when someone uses it to kill somebody so why are we getting mad at the hammer?
EDIT: I suppose "corrupt game journalism" isn't good either but I'm more of the mind that that really doesn't exist (or doesn't exist in the scope and the ways people want you to believe). So I suppose I'd have to say that one too if I thought it was a big enough problem to care about.
Every other item on this list is nothing but a tool. Said tool can be used in good ways, even if many big developers don't use them correctly. However, it's not the hammers fault when someone uses it to kill somebody so why are we getting mad at the hammer?
EDIT: I suppose "corrupt game journalism" isn't good either but I'm more of the mind that that really doesn't exist (or doesn't exist in the scope and the ways people want you to believe). So I suppose I'd have to say that one too if I thought it was a big enough problem to care about.
Misleading trailers is actually the ONLY item listed that truly bothers me.
Every other item listed may impact the timing of my buying decision but I don't consider any of those things to be remotely harmful. Releasing a game with season passes, micro transactions, day 1 dlc and early access? Great! I won't buy the game until the inevitable game of the year edition or ultimate edition comes out where everything is packaged together. It's no loss to me. I just saved a LOT of money. The companies still get some cash as well. So all I miss out on is playing the game at the peak of it's hype. Not a big loss in the long run.
There's no dishonesty in the above pricing models. They aren't kept secret by any means since the company wants your money. Misleading trailers on the other hand directly impact your level of trust for a product and the company going forward. They attempt to generate hype and trust in the product only to result in a negative experience (regardless of if you bought the product or not).
Every other item listed may impact the timing of my buying decision but I don't consider any of those things to be remotely harmful. Releasing a game with season passes, micro transactions, day 1 dlc and early access? Great! I won't buy the game until the inevitable game of the year edition or ultimate edition comes out where everything is packaged together. It's no loss to me. I just saved a LOT of money. The companies still get some cash as well. So all I miss out on is playing the game at the peak of it's hype. Not a big loss in the long run.
There's no dishonesty in the above pricing models. They aren't kept secret by any means since the company wants your money. Misleading trailers on the other hand directly impact your level of trust for a product and the company going forward. They attempt to generate hype and trust in the product only to result in a negative experience (regardless of if you bought the product or not).
please do tell, how does online only drm help the consumer at all? It is always detrimental to the consumer.tippy2k2 said:
In a pvp sense, mmo's having online only drm keeps the playing field level, I will admit, and I originally wasn't considering mmo's in my first post...so I'll concede to that.tippy2k2 said:
nonetheless, online only drm has been forcing its way into hundreds of games like an american into an oil rich country, unneeded and fucking annoying as hell to everyone else involved, it only serves the needs of the publisher.
I had added an edit but I was too slowgmaverick019 said:
So here's my edit that has now been edited out of my above statement and put down here instead.
EDIT: To expand, I agree that the vast majority of uses of online-only DRM is a bad thing. However, as I stated, it's still a tool. It might be a tool that gets misused a TON but it's still just a tool that has a proper and an improper use.
Gamers who won't stop whinging about every minor little thing, but still keep lapping up games that blatantly contain everything they supposedly hate.
For me this comes down to a toss up between Season Passes, Early Access, Misleading Trailers, Online Only DRM, and corruption in games journalism. Free to Play and Microtrasactions aren't inherently bad on their own, it's only when their abused and misused that they become bad, which sadly they are. Often. Hence where you get more problematic trends of Free to Wait and Free to Pay. Microtransactions should only be used in Free to Play games to obviously make up for the fact that the game is Free to Play. The game still costs money to develop and maintain after all and that money has to come from somewhere.
Early Access I suppose is a way to get your game out there and, for an indi dev, it can help earn the money necessary for you to finish the game in the first place. However once the dev has that money they're under no obligation to actually finish the game and anyone who bought into it is SOL if the dev decides not to finish it after all or it goes into development hell. I will never buy a game that's in Early Access. EVER.
Season Passes you're buying into content sight unseen, content that could turn out to be garbage.
Misleading Trailer, it's false advertising. Plain and simple.
Online Only DRM - Same as any other form of DRM, you're hurting your paying customers more than you are the pirates. Morons.
Corruption in game journalism, well anything with the word "corruption" attached to it is inherently bad.
Early Access I suppose is a way to get your game out there and, for an indi dev, it can help earn the money necessary for you to finish the game in the first place. However once the dev has that money they're under no obligation to actually finish the game and anyone who bought into it is SOL if the dev decides not to finish it after all or it goes into development hell. I will never buy a game that's in Early Access. EVER.
Season Passes you're buying into content sight unseen, content that could turn out to be garbage.
Misleading Trailer, it's false advertising. Plain and simple.
Online Only DRM - Same as any other form of DRM, you're hurting your paying customers more than you are the pirates. Morons.
Corruption in game journalism, well anything with the word "corruption" attached to it is inherently bad.
Always-on DRM.
steam, Origin, etc.
Free-to-play is a close second. So much potential lost, so much potential wasted.
I miss the days where you could buy a game, install it without hassle or any intruding third-parties, patch it via its own launcher and always be able to play at your own convenience, regardless of internet and drm-server availability.
steam, Origin, etc.
Free-to-play is a close second. So much potential lost, so much potential wasted.
I miss the days where you could buy a game, install it without hassle or any intruding third-parties, patch it via its own launcher and always be able to play at your own convenience, regardless of internet and drm-server availability.
Online only DRM, no question. Microtransactions/F2P are annoying, but generally avoidable for any decent game, journalism corruption is avoidable by checking out multiple sources for gaming opinions, DLC/Season Passes I just avoid unless they're for a game I actually like(Dark Souls 2, for example), and I have no problems with early access as a concept, just that some of the games on there are kinda bad.
Misleading trailers does run a close second, especially after the fiasco that was Aliens: Colonial Marines, but always online DRM is a major deal breaker for many games. MMO's can get away with it since being online is a vital part of their functionality, but for single-player games there's just no excuse.
Misleading trailers does run a close second, especially after the fiasco that was Aliens: Colonial Marines, but always online DRM is a major deal breaker for many games. MMO's can get away with it since being online is a vital part of their functionality, but for single-player games there's just no excuse.
Online DRM for single player games(which never needed it in the first place). Mutiplayer obviously requires a connection but there's never been a reason to require you to connect to a server for a single player experience, so they need to stop forcing it. Not to mention, someday when a company whose name rhymes with boobysoft decides that they don't want to spend money to maintain the servers anymore and oops, I guess I'm never playing that game again(Unless I become a dirty pirate and find a crack somewhere, if there is one).
Microtransactions I dislike in 2 flavors:
1.)Where the game is designed to make you buy the extra weapons/tools/gems in order to actually progress(Hey, EA. Didn't see you there)
2.) putting out DLC that really should have been part of the core game(and then charging another 20 bucks for it)(again, Hey EA and Bioware).
OTOH, In some cases it's not bad. Saints Row will offer you a bunch of DLC on steam and you don't need to buy any of it to play/enjoy/progress through the game.Most of it is extra costumes anyway, though "Gangstas in Space" and "Enter the Dominatrix" was quite good.
Microtransactions I dislike in 2 flavors:
1.)Where the game is designed to make you buy the extra weapons/tools/gems in order to actually progress(Hey, EA. Didn't see you there)
2.) putting out DLC that really should have been part of the core game(and then charging another 20 bucks for it)(again, Hey EA and Bioware).
OTOH, In some cases it's not bad. Saints Row will offer you a bunch of DLC on steam and you don't need to buy any of it to play/enjoy/progress through the game.Most of it is extra costumes anyway, though "Gangstas in Space" and "Enter the Dominatrix" was quite good.