When the "vocal minority" begins to actually hurt us consumers.

Sargonas42

The Doctor
Mar 25, 2010
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You know, I've about had it with the hypocrisy of the vocal minority of gamers. I'm well aware it's a running joke of sorts, and one of the fundamentals of the internet (much like cat pictures) but it's still bullshit and it needs to stop.

Three months ago Microsoft tried to revolutionize the concept of digital distribution and content ownership by allowing unprecedented capabilities to share your digital downloads with family and friends. It was ground breaking and a huge step forward for moving towards an all digital model. The underpinnings of the digital rights management that were, for all intents and purposes required, to power this caused a completely RIDICULOUS amount of backlash. So much so, Microsoft reversed their position and removed said DRM, and a major casualty of that being we now LOST all that ground breaking functionality that would not work without the associated rights management.

Fast forward 3 months to now, and Valve announces the SAME functionality, and powers it with the SAME type of content control underpinnings, and they are hailed as the heroes of the industry and placed on a golden pedestal by the same people!

I love Valve, I love their products and I have great friends there who make great things, but this deification of them needs to bloody stop! So too does the knee jerk reactions towards any "big company" trying to do anything new and exciting. It used to be that the vocal minority was annoying but harmless, but with the Xbox One it's been proven that they are bad for the rest of us consumers, and are now holding back the industry from progress.

Thoughts?
 

UnnDunn

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Aug 15, 2006
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Don't worry, this whole Valve Family Sharing thing is clearly a hoax, because the publishers would hate it... It's going to get abused so much that all the publishers will immediately go bankrupt. Plus, a random pastebin says the shared games will be in demo mode and will only work for 45 minutes, so obviously that's how it's going to work, and Valve is covering up how gimped the feature is going to be. Because publishers. /s
 

RedEyesBlackGamer

The Killjoy Detective returns!
Jan 23, 2011
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The Xbox One wanted an all-online present and declared war on the traditional sense of ownership of console games. It deserved what it got.
 

teh_gunslinger

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. did it better.
Dec 6, 2007
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The difference, such as it is, is that on the PC you can choose not to use Valve if you don't like their DRM scheme.

Personally, I loathe Valve and tend to only buy Steam games at 75% off, as I think Steam is a pile of poo that detracts value from the game. As a result I buy any game I can anywhere but Steam and I absolutely detest the rise in Steamworks that tie games to the blasted thing.

The proposed system Microsoft proposed was very consumer hostile and while the sharing thing was nice enough it was nowhere close to making the rest acceptable and you had nowhere else to go on the platform. Always on DRM is a pain in the backside and should always be opposed. I don't trust Valve with my games, and if I were the sort of person to buy a new console I'd certainly trust Microsoft even less. Just see the fucking mess that is GFWL and how a bunch of games (Dark Souls included, because From are morons) will likely end up dead when they pull the plug. That's a patently consumer hostile company.

All that said, I'm not convinced it was a tiny majority that was opposed to the Microsoft scheme. I've yet to talk to anyone who want to buy a Xbone as a result among my friends. They're all either moving to PC (the sensible choice) or getting a PS4 (the less sensible choice).
 

ThePuzzldPirate

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Oct 4, 2009
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No one was complaining about the X-box's family plan, it was all about what was coming with it. The family plan was sweet candy but the requirement was a kick in the balls to get it so I(and a lot of people) opt out. You can say Steam is DRM which I will agree in that but it is also on PC so I can find ways to launch games without it.
 

shrekfan246

Not actually a Japanese pop star
May 26, 2011
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Sargonas42 said:
Fast forward 3 months to now, and Valve announces the SAME functionality, and powers it with the SAME type of content control underpinnings, and they are hailed as the heroes of the industry and placed on a golden pedestal by the same people!
I haven't actually read up on Steam's announcement, but will the implementation of it subsequently require Steam to check in to the internet servers every 24 hours (every hour if not on the home PC) or else the entire system bricks down and locks people out of their game libraries?

Because that's what I was personally bitching about in reference to the Xbox One. Though, I suppose to be fair I may not be in the demographic you're talking about, because I don't think I could really care any less about these Sharing features, as I'm an uppity bastard without any friends to share my games with in the first place.

I'd also like to point out that Microsoft never really clearly stated what the game sharing would actually entail, simply that you could do it with up to ten people on your friend/family list. The cynic and conspiracy theorist in me would posit that they were intending to make it little more than a glorified demo service, because allowing that many potential customers to play entire games at no cost seems like business suicide.
 

Sargonas42

The Doctor
Mar 25, 2010
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RedEyesBlackGamer said:
The Xbox One wanted an all-online present and declared war on the traditional sense of ownership of console games. It deserved what it got.
But Steam has similarish online requirements, and long ago destroyed the concept of physical media on the PC platform. Why should consoles ignore the same future progress that came to PC years ago?

teh_gunslinger said:
The difference, such as it is, is that on the PC you can choose not to use Valve if you don't like their DRM scheme.
I'm not entirely sure we really have that choice any more. More and more publishers consider steam to be the "only" way to publish their titles, and release it solely through there. However Publishers ARE beginning to take note of this and the fact that it is not an ideal monopoly for either them or consumers, which is why we are seeing the roll out of things like EA's Origin, Ubisoft's UPlay, and Activision's upcomming platform.
 

Genocidicles

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Sep 13, 2012
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People didn't hate the Xbone's game sharing. They hated the bullshit DRM, and Microsoft got rid of the sharing too even though it could've worked without the once a day check-in.

Steam gets a pass because their DRM is nowhere near as bad as the xbone's was going to be.
 

teh_gunslinger

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. did it better.
Dec 6, 2007
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Sargonas42 said:
RedEyesBlackGamer said:
The Xbox One wanted an all-online present and declared war on the traditional sense of ownership of console games. It deserved what it got.
But Steam has similarish online requirements, and long ago destroyed the concept of physical media on the PC platform. Why should consoles ignore the same future progress that came to PC years ago?

teh_gunslinger said:
The difference, such as it is, is that on the PC you can choose not to use Valve if you don't like their DRM scheme.
I'm not entirely sure we really have that choice any more. More and more publishers consider steam to be the "only" way to publish their titles, and release it solely through there. However Publishers ARE beginning to take note of this and the fact that it is not an ideal monopoly for either them or consumers, which is why we are seeing the roll out of things like EA's Origin, Ubisoft's UPlay, and Activision's upcomming platform.
As I mentioned in my reply, Steam are indeed ever more like a monopoly and as I said, that's a fact that I detest, even if Valve were cool dudes, which they're not. They have some of the worst CS known to man and they generally don't do shit to help out users with problems, bouncing them around an endless loop of canned mails telling them to do what the user already said they'd tried. Add to that that the client is a piece of garbage that needs a ground up rewrite and that it took them 9 bloody years to add a way to select install folder (a feature that Origin and any other digital platform always had) as well as the years long bug present when shutting the computer down and a hex value being fucked up so offline mode didn't work. That's right. Unless you manually closed Steam before shutting the comp down you had to manually edit a hex value to make offline mode work. Those guys are inept and consumer hostile.

So I welcome Uplay, Origin, Gog, GamersGate, Greenman Gaming, Impulse and every other store that will chip away at Steams dominance.

So, yea, just because I was against Microsofts evil scheme doesn't mean I'm more happy about Valve.
 

generals3

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Mar 25, 2009
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Sargonas42 said:
RedEyesBlackGamer said:
The Xbox One wanted an all-online present and declared war on the traditional sense of ownership of console games. It deserved what it got.
But Steam has similarish online requirements, and long ago destroyed the concept of physical media on the PC platform. Why should consoles ignore the same future progress that came to PC years ago?
I don't call it progress. I call it regression. And don't let Valve fanboyism tell you otherwise. I hate Steam for what it does and is and only use it for games that force me to use it. I'll always choose a physical copy over this steam nonsense.

Consequently i'm all in favor of preventing consoles to take the same bad steps.
 

Mutant1988

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Sep 9, 2013
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Sargonas42 said:
RedEyesBlackGamer said:
The Xbox One wanted an all-online present and declared war on the traditional sense of ownership of console games. It deserved what it got.
But Steam has similarish online requirements, and long ago destroyed the concept of physical media on the PC platform. Why should consoles ignore the same future progress that came to PC years ago?
Except that they didn't force it on us and instead offered it as an option, which we then naturally adopted as a standard. It certainly helps that Valve act amiably and offer extremely competitive prices.

Unlike Microsoft, which imposed draconic limitations (Register disc games permanently to an online account that needs to "check-in" once every 24 hours or you lose access and the inability to sell/rent/trade or lend games) and responded to all critique with insults and a general attitude of "We decide how you play. Deal with it".

That's not how you treat a customer.

Sargonas42 said:
teh_gunslinger said:
The difference, such as it is, is that on the PC you can choose not to use Valve if you don't like their DRM scheme.
I'm not entirely sure we really have that choice any more. More and more publishers consider steam to be the "only" way to publish their titles, and release it solely through there. However Publishers ARE beginning to take note of this and the fact that it is not an ideal monopoly for either them or consumers, which is why we are seeing the roll out of things like EA's Origin, Ubisoft's UPlay, and Activision's upcomming platform.
Which are all incapable of competing with Valve because they impose further restrictions on end users, suffer from technical difficulties or just can't offer their products to a price people are willing to pay.

Now Microsoft on the other hand offer the same bad deal but with an additional 500 USD introduction fee (The hardware) with no option for retailers (All games and all secondary systems being monitored and managed by Microsoft) or really, any end-user control over the products you purchase.
 

wintercoat

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Nov 26, 2011
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Sargonas42 said:
You know, I've about had it with the hypocrisy of the vocal minority of gamers. I'm well aware it's a running joke of sorts, and one of the fundamentals of the internet (much like cat pictures) but it's still bullshit and it needs to stop.

Three months ago Microsoft tried to revolutionize the concept of digital distribution and content ownership by allowing unprecedented capabilities to share your digital downloads with family and friends. It was ground breaking and a huge step forward for moving towards an all digital model. The underpinnings of the digital rights management that were, for all intents and purposes required, to power this caused a completely RIDICULOUS amount of backlash. So much so, Microsoft reversed their position and removed said DRM, and a major casualty of that being we now LOST all that ground breaking functionality that would not work without the associated rights management.

Fast forward 3 months to now, and Valve announces the SAME functionality, and powers it with the SAME type of content control underpinnings, and they are hailed as the heroes of the industry and placed on a golden pedestal by the same people!

I love Valve, I love their products and I have great friends there who make great things, but this deification of them needs to bloody stop! So too does the knee jerk reactions towards any "big company" trying to do anything new and exciting. It used to be that the vocal minority was annoying but harmless, but with the Xbox One it's been proven that they are bad for the rest of us consumers, and are now holding back the industry from progress.

Thoughts?
And all you had to do was sign away the right to actually own the games you've bought. But that's not such a bad thing, is it?

Steam's DRM is miles better than the bullshit Microsoft wanted to roll out. I can play my Steam games whether I have an internet connection or not. I don't need to wear a virtual ankle bracelet in order to check in like I'm on house arrest. Steam doesn't de facto treat me like a criminal. I don't have to pay to play my games online(and yes, I see that as a point against Sony, too), all while being bombarded by ads, many of which aren't even gaming related.

Steam isn't perfect. It's far from it. But comparing it to the shitfest that was the original announced XB1 is laughable.
 

Abomination

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Dec 17, 2012
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I'm sorry, you seem to be living in this fantasy world where Steam doesn't have an "offline mode" yet Microsoft was announcing that it would have one rather than the standard model of "always online".

Because that would be the exact OPPOSITE as to what was happening.

The sharing functionality was great, it was something we all wanted to hear much more of when it was nothing more than an off-handed remark with no substance. It was an "in the future we will have this sort of functionality".

So they were offering us a great big turd sandwich with this promise of amazing garnish. We turned down the turd sandwich but you're berating people for doing so because of the potential amazing garnish that would have been part and parcel of the turd sandwich.

Sorry, OP, but you seem to have completely forgotten the entire context of the scenario you are complaining about.
 

DataSnake

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Aug 5, 2009
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Sargonas42 said:
But Steam has similarish online requirements, and long ago destroyed the concept of physical media on the PC platform. Why should consoles ignore the same future progress that came to PC years ago?
Good question. Thank God for Jim Sterling, because he already answered [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7586-Why-PC-Gaming-Gets-Away-With-It] it.
 

Hero in a half shell

It's not easy being green
Dec 30, 2009
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[HEADING=1]24 HOUR CHECK-IN[/HEADING]

[HEADING=2]24 HOUR CHECK-IN[/HEADING]

[HEADING=3]24 HOUR CHECK-IN[/HEADING]
The reason we complain.

I'm sorry, but as nice as sharing my digital games would have been, having to put up with my console blocking me from using it's primary function every time I exceeded 24 hours without an internet connection is not a restriction I am prepared to accept for that particular ability.

Also, Steam has an unlimited offline mode, but the Xbox One DRM would have been constantly refusing to work for people who paid $500 for it, plus their games, because it automatically branded them criminals when they hit the arbitrary 24 hour limit.
ThePuzzldPirate said:
No one was complaining about the X-box's family plan, it was all about what was coming with it. The family plan was sweet candy but the requirement was a kick in the balls to get it so I(and a lot of people) opt out. You can say Steam is DRM which I will agree in that but it is also on PC so I can find ways to launch games without it.
Exactly.
 

FourCartridge

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Dec 27, 2012
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shrekfan246 said:
I'd also like to point out that Microsoft never really clearly stated what the game sharing would actually entail, simply that you could do it with up to ten people on your friend/family list. The cynic and conspiracy theorist in me would posit that they were intending to make it little more than a glorified demo service, because allowing that many potential customers to play entire games at no cost seems like business suicide.
Not sure if it changes the conversation much, but it was debunked that it was sharing games:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=65184146&postcount=48

It was just a 60 minute demo Ala PS+.

As for my 2 cents, The Xbox 1 as originally presented had almost nothing good about it for people who play games, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't a vocal minority that shouted to get rid of it's DRM. As for what Valve is doing, it's Valve. They have their own little... fanbase that follows them like the Big Three.
 

Genocidicles

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Sep 13, 2012
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Oh I forgot to mention, the people complaining weren't the reason why Microsoft changed their minds.

The PS4 beating the xbone in pre-orders 10-1 (or something like that.) is what made them change their minds.