might be my last post on the topic, but I've enjoyed the discussion so far!
I'm not telling anyone to put my interests ahead of their own. I'm asking them to defend the stance that check-ins are somehow not anti-consumer. Most of the defense of that specific practice is people acting like it would be the only possible way to be able to resell digital licenses or play disc purchases without the disc, which is a position with no factual basis.
It's anti-consumer in the trivial sense that "some consumers will have their usage habits affected negatively by this if they happen to buy it", but that sort of drains the term of any useful meaning if that's all you mean by anti-consumer. Literally every product in existence has something "anti-consumer" by that standard.
And the reason why I'm "acting like it would be the only possible way" is because that's literally been the only example in gaming history where all of the concepts were proposed as features in unison for every game available on the platform. My "evidence" is that the only time a major video game company has proposed all of these features simultaneously has also involved a periodic check-in to tie it all together, and from my base knowledge of how the console industry works, that's likely the easiest technical way to support all sides of it. You can definitely support some of the below ideas without an online check, since there's obvious evidence in other places to show it's possible:
-You can support discless play even after buying a disc (steamworks retail discs)
-You can support trading in and lending discs (the status quo on consoles)
-you can get 3rd parties on board to release games on a system with without them worrying about piracy (also the status quo on consoles/PC)
-You can support family sharing without the primary user being online, though other people need to be online to use it (steam family sharing)
But I haven't seen any evidence that you can get all of those features simultaneously (beyond just people saying it on message boards). It's never been done before (and still hasn't been done, even on Steam, which is the closest comparison and why it gets brought up), so we're all kind of starting from scratch here.
If someone comes along and supports all of that without an online check-in, then great! I'll prefer that even more. I don't have any special love for 24hr check-ins, it just happens to not be a dealbreaker for me and my usage habits. My position is not really any more complex than that.
I don't need to be a software developer to be against an idea that works against my interests. I don't need to have a solution to suggest they find a way to deliver benefits without such severe drawbacks.
Hmm, I don't think I've ever said you have to "support" the idea anyway. I routinely acknowledge that those ideas wouldn't work for you and a lot of other people. Those drawbacks
are severe for people who want to play single player games offline. No argument from me on that.
But why do people continue to assume that those drawbacks are therefore "severe" for every single person in all cases? The only response is "well, they changed it and more people agree with me, so there". Which is a weird response, because I never disputed that more people would agree with the status quo.
It seems weird to go on and on about how consumers should prioritize their own interests, and then turn around and ignore that
not every consumer has the exact same interests when buying game consoles.
Two companies can fuck up at the same time. Steam has Steamworks discs (which you keep bringing up despite the fact that no one buying them has any expectation of reselling them)
Why is it accepted that "no one has any expectation of reselling" those discs, and that's just part of the limitation of Steam, but if I said "I have no expectation of selling Xbox One games the way I would sell a PS4 game", that's somehow a perplexing viewpoint? And why is it so surprising to be interested in potential ways to add a feature to support selling retail discs, while also supporting discless play, even if it comes at the "cost" of being connected to the internet?
Why do I seemingly need to prioritize offline play in the exact same way other people do? I acknowledge that offline play is a high priority for a lot of people. It happens to not be a high priority for me, so when people go on about "severe" drawbacks, I want them to acknowledge that it's severe
for them, and there's no need to universalize that belief and assume it's therefore severe for everyone.
, which could potentially be resold if they implemented a way to do that. They haven't. They're not relevant to MS, though, so it's just whataboutism at this point. Steam has not promised this feature, they have not announced that they're working on this feature, so to expect a solution from them is ludicrous. MS did, however, and their solution sucked.
How is it whataboutism? It's
literally the closest relevant game/disc licensing comparison that exists in the video game world. This entire discussion is about the pros/cons of hybrid disc/digital licensing models, why wouldn't the most well known precedent for this be a part of the discussion? None of this exists in a vacuum, after all.
If the reason for being online is to access online content, that is not inherently anti-consumer. If the reason for being online is to make sure people own content they bought (and is stored locally on their device or a disc) and to revoke access to that content the moment the user is not online (after a duration), that is anti-consumer. Seems pretty clear to almost everyone in this thread. You're trying to compare MS's vision with online services when they're obviously not comparable at all. Online content requires online connection, no shit. The issue here is that ALL content regardless of whether or not you need internet to access it required internet with their 2013 pitch.
My content is also revoked as soon as I take the disc out of my machine, even though there's literally no technical reason at all for the disc to access it (remember, the actual playable game is on your hard drive, not your disc). People seem to hate when that's brought up, but it's a pretty basic fact of how modern consoles operate. If we're so concerned about not having arbitrary restrictions over accessing content, then why isn't there an uproar over that?
Why is requiring a plastic disc to prove you own content (even though the disc isn't actually needed for anything related to running the game) not "anti-consumer", but me preferring an online check instead of inserting a plastic disc is "anti-consumer"? By the logic of "I should never have to prove I own content I already bought", it seems like they're both bad. But if someone appreciates the other benefits of using a plastic disc to prove ownership, then it's gonna be less bad for them. But if someone prefers discless play and having the internet handle the "prove ownership" part, while still retaining other benefits that come along with having a disc (such as the ones proposed originally related to resales), then the status quo is worse for them. Even if yes, they are in a minority.
I've never said the dozens of you are shills. You might be arguing against your own interests by believing the only way digital resale could happen was with a checkin and complete restriction of vendors.
Once there's a licensing model that supports all the original proposed ideas, and doesn't have a 24hr check-in, then you can say I'm "arguing against my own interests" by preferring the 2013 plans with the check-in. Currently, Steam is probably the closest, with Xbox Live/PSN coming second (though there are a couple situations where Xbox Live/PSN is better than Steam), and Nintendo last. But there's currently no company that supports all of the original proposed ideas in unison, so I can't see how I'm arguing against my own interests when there's literally no licensing model in use for games that fits *all* my interests that currently exists now. Just simply asserting "they could have did it another way" doesn't actually make it so, until another game company actually proposes the idea (which should be happening soon, since apparently, the alternatives are so obviously easy to do).
