The XBox Thread - Page 187

On June 27 2013 22:47 paralleluniverse wrote:
I've had more time to reflect on Xbox One and the future of gaming in general. I've come to the conclusion that opponents of Microsoft's original policies are retrogressive, hypocritical or moronic. And Microsoft's flip-flop was cowardly and shameful. I'm objective and unbiased in the sense that I've never personally bought a console. Let's go through some of the arguments.

1. “DRM!!”
Firstly, complaints that the 24 hour internet check-in amounts to a restrictive form of DRM is utter nonsense. Most people have access to internet. You don't even need good internet to perform such a check-in, it could be done on a 56K modem connection. But the main point is that by this sort of reasoning everything is DRM. Requiring a disc in the drive is DRM. This particularly annoying form of DRM was used in PC gaming decades ago and has since been done away with. Yet it's somehow acceptable that this archaic, ancient DRM mechanism survives into the next generation of consoles? Xbox One would have got rid of this, but now it's back.

Indeed, WoW is DRM. You can't play WoW offline. DRM! Twitter is DRM. You can't tweet without access to the internet. DRM! Oh, but some people have argued that WoW is a MMO, as if that semantic argument relieves WoW of being DRM. Being online is intrinsic to WoW and Twitter, whereas it is not necessary for Xbox One to have a 24 hour check-in, so the argument goes, therefore, the online requirement of WoW and Twitter is not DRM. But this is completely wrong. The online requirement for WoW is just as much of a free choice by Blizzard as the 24 hours check-in is by Microsoft. Blizzard didn't have to make WoW an online game. They could have put in an offline mode, making the game more like Skyrim. It's also not necessary that Twitter requires the internet. It could have used the cell phone system, like SMS. By this sort of flaky logic, WoW and Twitter are DRM, just like Xbox One, and therefore should be boycotted, and internet rage should be directed by internet users on Blizzard and Twitter for requiring an internet connection to use their service. The second part of the argument is also wrong--Xbox One does necessarily require a 24 hour check-in. It is necessary. Without it, it would be possible to have your friend login with his account on your Xbox One, then download all his games on your console so that you have access to them forever. It would also be possible to resell a physical game, but still play the game by staying offline so the console does not know that you've sold the game.

2. “DRM for PC is OK, DRM for Xbox One is Not”
Those who argue that DRM for PC gaming and Steam is OK, but that it's not OK for Xbox One, are valueless hypocrites. These failed arguments are made, for example, in this imbecilic rant from The Escapist and this screed of fallacious arguments from Eurogamer. The argument essentially boils down to DRM is OK on Steam because Steam has sales, but it's not OK on Xbox One, because Xbox Live doesn't have sales.

If you're against Xbox One for DRM, yet subscribe to this argument, you're a sellout. You're selling out your anti-DRM values for cheaper games. No one has been able to articulate why digital games, such as those on Steam, should have DRM, whereas physical games, like discs, should not have DRM. Why is it OK that a digital game cannot be resold, but it's not OK if a physical game cannot be resold? As you rail against Microsoft's rather weak DRM, why don't you complain about Steam's DRM? Because Steam has cheap games? This is a non-sequitar. If you're against DRM, the fact that Steam has cheap games does not imply that Steam's DRM should skate past without scrutiny. Why not take Steam's cheap games and still boycott and rage against Valve for their oppressive and draconian policies that outright stops you from reselling games and sharing games? Is it because you're scared that without such DRM policies that Steam games wouldn’t be so cheap? Unless you're harshly criticizing Valve, which no one in these arguments is, for their outrageously restrictive DRM policies, you're a massive hypocrite selling out your values.

Then we turn to the question of why games are cheaper on Steam. The most common argument is that there is competition on PC because of platforms like Steam, Origin, Greenman Gaming, and GOG (which sells mostly old games that no one cares about anymore), whereas there's no competition on consoles. Xbox Live is the only way to get digital games on Xbox. But this is completely wrong for at least three reasons.

Firstly, publishers, not Microsoft, set prices. They set the price on Steam, Origin, Amazon, Xbox Live, PSN, etc. And publishers do not have a monopoly. Publishers compete with each other. So it makes no sense to say that Microsoft has a monopoly on Xbox Live and that's why prices are high. Microsoft doesn't set prices on Xbox Live. When Microsoft announced the price of first-party Xbox One games, why do you think they didn’t announce the price of third-party Xbox One games too? Because they have nothing to do with those prices.

Secondly, why doesn't this argument imply that game prices are high on all platforms? Prices on Xbox Live are high because that's the only place you can buy digital games for Xbox. Then prices on Steam should be high because that's the only place you can buy digital games for Steam. Prices on the Blizzard store should be high because that's the only place you can buy digital games for Battle.net. Share prices of UK companies should be high because the only place you can buy them is at the London Stock Exchange. The argument simply makes no sense.

Thirdly, the premise that prices are high on Xbox Live because that's the only place to get Xbox games is simply not true. You can buy Xbox games on Amazon, at Gamestop, on Ebay, and various other outlets. So there is competition between sellers of Xbox games. The same is true of PS games. But then why hasn't this competition driven down the prices of console games to the levels of PC games. Due to being distracted by the faulty premise to their arguments, no one has convincingly answered this fundamental question. Why is it that console games cannot be as cheap as PC games?

The haters wouldn’t dare say it's because PC games cannot be resold. Admitting that would be just too much hypocrisy: believing that DRM is bad, but it's good if games are cheap, but games can't possibly be cheap because of DRM. A recent paper agrees with my arguments by showing that customers are currently willing to pay higher prices for console games because they know they can recover part of that cost later by resale, and that killing resale would mean they are not willing to pay as high of a price. The conclusion of the study is that killing resale but leaving prices unchanged will reduce profits by 10%. But killing resale and lowering prices by 33% will increase profits by 18%, and this is the profit-maximizing price. In other words, killing resale is a win-win, consumers pay lower prices and game makers get higher profit. So who loses? The resellers.

But then why are Xbox One games $60? But why are AAA new releases on Steam almost always charged at full recommended retail price, which is usually $60? Because people who buy games at release are fans that are willing to pay a higher price. But like Steam, prices on Xbox One would have likely dropped faster as a result of DRM. Games which aren’t AAA would likely have been cheaper. However, they wouldn’t be as cheap as Steam, because Xbox One’s restrictions, contrary to the exaggerated complaints, was rather mild compared to Steam’s draconian DRM policies which so many people hypocritically give a free pass to. One of the mistakes of Xbox One was not supporting backward compatibility. Just like Steam, that would have allowed publishers to sell new games at full price in almost all situations, and old games at significantly cheaper prices. Regardless, you can now continue to enjoy overpriced console games courtesy of your misguided outrage.

3. The Retrogressive and Primitive Console Market
The console market is overpriced compared to the PC market. But that's not all, it lags basically on every dimension. In fact, one could be forgiven for mistaking today's console market for the PC market a decade ago.

Whereas PC games can no longer be resold, it is still possible to resell console games. The result of Microsoft’s recent u-turn to put no restriction on resale is to prop up the current inefficient status quo. A status quo where a sizable proportion of the money that gamers spend goes to leeches like Gamestop and EB, businesses that are unnecessary and add little to no value to the product, instead of going to developers. These are businesses that deserve nothing.

Consoles have failed to embrace digital distribution. Consoles still require a disc to be in the drive, an antiquated artifact from PC gaming, which is no longer necessary due to games being linked to online accounts. These online accounts are ubiquitous in PC gaming, for example on Battle.net and Steam. Online accounts grants you access to your game library on any computer, allows you to always download your games, allows for quicker updates, automatically saves your progress on the server, reduces the incidence of hacking local saves, improves anti-cheat capabilities, reduces smurfing, increases accountability, enables an array of social features such as achievements that can be verified by a server and cross-game chat. Yet the convenience of online accounts is in its infancy on consoles. In 2013, on the console version of Diablo 3, one way of playing at your friend’s house is to tug your character around on a USB and check that you saved. These are the sort of ancient techniques that were used to play your Diablo 2 single player character at your friend’s house in 2000. But in 2012, on the PC version of Diablo 3, this sort of manual labor is not necessary because all characters are saved on the Battle.net servers. It’s also not possible, thereby preventing cheaters from hacking their characters using a trainer. This is just one illustration of how console games are still decades behind the times.

Another is disc-based games, which are essentially dead on PC. But on consoles, they survive. These are games without the convenience of being linked to an online account and all the above-listed benefits that brings, and comes with the cumbersome need to screw around with inserting, ejecting, switching and storing discs. Discs are obsolete. Stuffing about with discs is a tedious exercise that is simply unnecessary in PC gaming. Moreover, clinging to this outdated relic, as opposed to going 100% digital distribution, leads to a pointless and unnecessary increase in production costs that either needlessly increases developer’s expenses or leads to higher prices for consumers. Discs are an anathema. Consoles need to get over discs. PC already has.

Yet another way in which consoles resemble PCs a decade ago, is in how slow they’ve been in embracing online gaming. Just as the PC pioneered the digital distribution of games, it also pioneered online play with the original Battle.net. The fact that so many games on console are single player, as opposed to PC, is one reason why the longevity of console games are short, which contributes to the resale problem. The most popular games on PC, such as WoW, LoL, SC2, Dota 2, Counter-Strike, Diablo 3 have one thing in common. They are all online games. And yet we have people, on these forums, the forum of an online PC game, arguing that they cannot handle a 24 hour internet check-in or that they cannot effectively download games via the internet. Sometimes, it is pointed out that other groups, often the military, in an attempt to engender sympathy, are being screwed over. But the war in Iraq is over and the war in Afghanistan is ending in 2014, only a short time after the release of the Xbox One. So get over it or get a PS4, because the benefits of online play are numerous and the console market should not be designed as if the entire world is without internet. Single player games have their place. They are an excellent medium for compelling storytelling. But online games have more longevity. The melodramatic whining about online requirements is pathetic and exaggerated. If you have a problem with online requirements and online games, what the hell are you doing on this forum? The sooner consoles realize, as the PC has a decade ago, that online games are the future, the better all our gaming experiences will be, and the more value for money we get out of buying video games.

Now that we've established that the current console market is essentially the PC market stuck in the past decade, it should be clear the primary challenge for next-generation consoles is to move towards the future--to fix this primitive and outdated mode of playing video games. While Sony has no innovations to move forward, Microsoft originally presented a visionary future for the console market, but thanks to the loud outrage of a regressive, short-sighted, entitled and hypocritical mob on the internet, Microsoft caved, and the console market will remain as outdated trash.

PC gaming eventually got over this phase, to emerge more efficient, cheaper and better for gamers, but console gamers will continue to remain stuck in the past a while longer. The goal is to move the console market to what the PC market is.

4. What Should the Future of Gaming Look Like?
The current situation is analogous to the healthcare debate in the US. The status quo (current console market) is terrible and overpriced. Yet everyone raged and hated on Obamacare (Xbox One policies) despite the fact it would help address these massive problems. People were absolutely opposed to change even though the current system was completely screwed up, because they were scared that their freedom was being taken away, despite the fact that universal healthcare in other countries (PC games) are models of proven success that could be emulated. Obamacare (Xbox One policies) was an imperfect compromise that would move us to a better future with more efficient, cheaper and better healthcare (console games).

So what should the future of gaming, both for PC and console look like? I would like to hear what you have to say, but here's my answer to this question:

-No discs: Kill the disc. They are no longer necessary. Go with 100% digital distribution. Despite the drama, this will not be a problem, millions of people seem to be fine with downloading games on Steam currently or playing online games on PC. This includes predownloads. End this unneeded cost.

-No resale: Like PC, no more reselling used games. As PC has shown and as the previously cited paper finds, this will lower the amount consumers are willing to pay for games, as they can no longer make money back by resale, which will lead to lower prices through competition between publishers.

-Game sharing limited to machine and spawn versions: Microsoft’s original sharing plan that allowed up to 10 people to access your game library was flawed since it partly undoes the effect of the resale restrictions that would have led to lower prices. The right balance is to allow sharing games to the extent that it is quite likely that other people would not have bought the game anyway. So it should be possible to share games with anyone playing on your console or computer, even if they are signed in their account, since families under the same roof tend to only buy one copy of a game. This would mean that each account would be associated to a console or computer on which other people can play their game library, but you can still play your own games on any console or computer. Sharing accounts should be absolutely discouraged, as it may increase the incidence of account compromises. Moreover, it should be possible to spawn the game, allowing you to play full multiplayer with party members who do not own the game, possibly with some restrictions like up to 50 hours of total game time. This is different from demos, which is usually a restricted subset of the game. With an online account system, traditional demos could be widely and easily made available to everyone.

-Major emphasis on online games, online accounts and social networks: Similar to PC, games on the same platform should always be tied to an online account. There is no outrage about Battle.net accounts or Steam accounts, yet when Microsoft proposes this, it’s suddenly a scandal. Having one unified online account greatly increases convenience and complements going 100% digital distribution and killing discs. It also provides a single identity that can be used as a basis for a social network for games, with social features for everyone, like chat channels, forums, cross-game chat, groups, sharing videos, streams and screenshots. It is a prerequisite to having one unified community. Compare the ease and simplicity of everyone playing SC2 using B.net with the coordination problems of SC1 where some played on pirate servers, some played via LAN, some played via Hamachi, some only played offline, some played on Battle.net, some played on ICCUP, and so on. Online accounts allows for all the other benefits previously listed. There should be a greatly increased emphasis on online play and online games which are the most popular on PC and have the greatest longevity. This should be accompanied with more investment in server infrastructure, as Microsoft is currently doing. Titanfall being online only is a move in the right direction, and the future of gaming should consist of more online games. Being online also allows for massive datasets to be gathered about play patterns, which helps developers improve game design. For example, many changes in WoW are based on data. When to nerf raid bosses sometimes depends on statistics about how often guilds are getting brick-walled. Finally, I have no problem with an always online requirement in order to enforce one unified community as Blizzard does, although others may disagree with this for single player games.

-More expansions, less DLC: There should be less DLC and more expansions. This is what we see in the PC market. It’s unfortunate that there is still so much DLC on PC, but the problem is much worse on consoles, where developers also use them as part of a desperate attempt to extend the life of games and to reduce resale. DLC are a massive ripoff. Preorder bonuses are completely ridiculous in both ripping people off and wasting developer resources on making content that is arbitrarily restricted by the physical store you preorder at, for absolutely no justifiable reason. Also, while not caused by used games, microtransactions have ruined the MMO genre and many other games, allowing those with more money to buy much greater conveniences and even power increases.

-No region locking: Region locking is an anti-consumer practice done to charge different prices to different regions based on how much people in various countries are willing to pay. For example, things are more expensive in Australia than the US because disposable income and the median wage is higher in Australia than the US. The only positive thing to come out of the Microsoft backlash is to kill region locking for Xbox One.

5. Transitioning to a Better Future for Gaming
This is the glorious future that consoles could have had. PC gaming currently is almost there. But now it’s been derailed by mad idiots on the internet, Microsoft’s spinelessness, and Sony’s utter lack of imagination and vision. PC gaming has paved the way forward, and yet the solution of the mob of Microsoft haters is to ignore this fact. And then to rage at Microsoft so that console prices can remain forever overpriced, physical stores like Gamestop and EB can continue to be parasites on the industry, the console market can remain stuck in the past, and the horribly inefficient status quo can be maintained. They have no solution and no vision, just illogical rants and fallacious arguments.

No, Sony is not the messiah. They’re an unscrupulous, opportunistic and incompetent corporation. In 2011, Sony was hacked, resulting in the personal details of 70 million user’s being compromised and PSN being down for almost a month. Embarrassingly, the intrusion was pulled off by an SQL injection attack, arguably the most elementary and simplistic hack in the book. Between 2005 and 2007, Sony secretly installed rootkits on their customer’s computers. Intended as DRM, this rootkit was exceedingly hard to remove and created gaping security vulnerabilities. After this had been exposed, Sony released a program which they claimed would remove the rootkit, but it didn’t remove it, it installed additional malware, collected personal information and created even more security vulnerabilities. So contrary to attempts to paint Sony as anti-DRM heroes, they were responsible for the most pernicious, evil, outrageous, deceptive, insidious, invasive and illegal form of DRM ever known. And we can add “defender of the terrible console market status quo” to the list of Sony’s infamous achievements.

We need to drag this console market into the future that PC has achieved. And for all the flaws and compromises Xbox One originally had, it was moving in the right direction, while PS4 was planted firmly in the past. People have the bandwidth to download games on Steam, to play online games like WoW and LoL. The world is ready for the online future. And if you’re not, you have a choice: go buy a worthless PS4. The problem now is that there is no longer a choice for a forward-looking console. You might think you’ve won, but Gamestop has won. You’ve lost and ultimately Microsoft’s flip-flop will hurt gamers by perpetuating this shitty system.

You've successfully delayed the inevitable.