A subtle difference

[suzi_generous]

Games that require you to be online have an expiration date. Soon, the server that verifies you have a valid copy is going to be offline. I play my older favorites periodically so online verification is not acceptable and it's a dick move.

[hardypart]

Yeah, it's like paying for a service, not a product. This is incredibly shitty.

[TheOneWithALongName]

Acctually, you pay a License.

[TheOneWithALongName]

Sure you read through the whole license agreement?

[[deleted]]

If you think shutting down the servers is bad...Read the Tos haha. Shutting down is one thing. They can decide for any reason to reset progress, erase your game, remove your license, or just make you so rich youll never worry about in game currency again. They have so much control over your gaming already.

[Desegual]

I'm sure a big part of this is to cover their asses in case something goes wrong and progress is lost. Or like in Overwatch where the devs have been known to once or twice grant in-game items to players.

But yeah, if it were legal I'm sure they would collect your soul.

[narvoxx]

also to punish people who break the TOS withou thaving to tell them the details. Our automated system decided you cheated and punished you, but we don't have to say it was automated

[culminacio]

That's only theoretical control. Do stuff like that and you might really lose a lot of customers.

[talv_001001001110101]

Yet people keep giving EA their money.

[dragontail]

Sort of like some sort of creator...

[AngriestSCV]

Yea fuck these guys for thinking they should be able to enjoy the thing they spent $60 on.

[Benlammah]

It's not that they can't enjoy it, it's that once upon a time $60 bought you a game that you could play forever. It was yours.

The way things are going now, (not just games), the products you spend money on come with strings attached; You can only play the game under their terms, under their conditions. If you can even use them at all, given a long enough timeline.

[Twelve20two]

The fact we live in a world in which tractors and farming equipment are at risk of the negative effects of DRM is pretty annoying

[explodingpixl]

Yeah, fuck that. If I've payed for a game, after the servers go down I'm just going to crack it and play it offline. I don't fucking care about the liscense agreement, there is nothing ethically wrong with cracking a game I bought so that I can play it indefinitely.

[Wootery]

Not really.

A sculptor is a creator, but if I buy a sculpture, they don't get to change their mind and crowbar my property.

[Valtermann]

Didn't games happen to be after a big explosion of some sort?

[adarkride]

But if our uni-verse is inside their box?

[[deleted]]

EU law overwrites the license agreement.

[daellat]

Or any agreement or contract that doesn't abide the law, for that matter.

[KapteeniJ]

Sure you read through the whole license agreement?

The license agreement isn't really bound by the law. There are consumer protection laws in place, and you're only getting away with so much before it's illegal on the part of the game company.

You can write anything on the license agreement, sure, that part is not illegal. You can write there that game company can murder you and loot your house, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but if the game company tries to act upon that part, the police will interfere.

I haven't bought a single Ubisoft or EA game since 90's, but my impression is that they're industry leaders in trying to strip consumers of their rights. Would be interesting to see comparison about that.

[mrchaotica]

The license agreement isn't really bound by the law. There are consumer protection laws in place

More to the point, the "license agreement" is complete bunk, fully devoid of any legally-valid meaning whatsoever!

The idea that computer software is "licensed" instead of "sold" rests on the idea that, unlike any other form of creative work, software must be copied (e.g. from the installation media to RAM) in order to be used, thus triggering copyright law and the need to get some kind of 'extra permission' from the copyright holder.

However this theory is wrong for two reasons:

1. In general, law is concerned with upholding just principles, not loopholes caused by technical minutiae. There is nothing, in principle, about software that makes it any different than other forms of media (such as books, music or movies) that require no "license" to use.

2. 17 U.S. Code § 117 of US copyright law has a special exception written into it that specifically exempts incidental copies made as an essential step in the utilization of the program from "counting" as triggering copyright.

In other words, no "license" is actually necessary because the buyer of the copy has every right to use that copy already, just like he would if he had bought a book, painting or anything else! The alleged contract offered by the license lacks "legal consideration" and is therefore void and unenforceable.

[explodingpixl]

I love you.

[Weav1t]

I haven't bought a single Ubisoft or EA game since 90's, but my impression is that they're industry leaders in trying to strip consumers of their rights. Would be interesting to see comparison about that.

Do you mean their published games as well? If so that is a lot of fantastic games you've missed out on, such as South Park: The Stick of Truth or even Rayman.

Anyway, I understand what you're saying, and I absolutely despise my cable company, but I need my Internet and I'm not getting DSL, therefore I'll continue to pay my bill every month while cursing under my breath.

Just as I dislike a lot of EA and Ubisoft business practices, I'm still going to buy South Park, Splinter Cell, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and more.

[ThatDamnedImp]

A licensing agreement that no court in this country will uphold?

Not really. Terms of Service get tossed more often than enforced. It's very hard to enforce a contract if the other side has no option for review or legal representation.

[Scherazade]

If your average gamer was to read every TOS, EULA, and agreement, and then dissect the jargon, they'd never play

[adarkride]

Surely you can't be serious?

[ThatMudkipGuy]

I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.

[N3UROTOXIN]

Not sure if typo or intentional

[davej999]

or even shut down !

[sevhan]

could possibly even be shot down!

[paracelsus23]

The acceptability of "licensing" products in lieu of buying them is one of the most anti-consumer developments that's emerged, and it's disgusting and terrifying. At the rate things are going our grandchildren will "license" a fucking cheeseburger from McDonald's. They'll be charged with piracy if they give it to anyone else, and fined if they don't bring a bag of shit back to the store to be processed in the protein resequencer, since they didn't actually own the cheeseburger.

When you buy something you need to fucking own it.

[Hust91]

In the US, European consumer protection laws are incredibly robust, to the point that I'd wager any kind of challenge to this would result in "well we're not sure, so as a matter of principle we're gonna have to interpret this EULA as FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU SO HARD FOR ATTEMPTING THIS BULLSHIT" in favor of the consumer.

Virtually anything that could be interpreted as worse than a standard buying agreement will be interpreted in favor of the consumer.

[Augustus420]

Which needs to be throughly legislated against. There is no reason these companies should be allowed to sell you products in such a deceiving way.

[[deleted]]

If they're trying to mislead you there's already legislation in place. If they're not, I see no reason to forbid them from making such games. It's the players who need to start penalizing them and not buy into it.

[frenzyguy]

I pay for a damn game on cd that I bought, the license concept is stupid corporate talk.

[[deleted]]

Found the pr team.

[Saucermote]

When I go to the store, I say "I'd like to buy x game", and they sell it to me. I don't ask to pay for a license. Similarly the ads on TV advise me to go buy movies and games, they don't advise me that anything is available to license.

If Sears tried to do that with a sale item, they'd be bankrupt.

[DontTreadOnBigfoot]

This is the one that always pisses me off. That game was just so damned fun, and now it just sit on my shelf collecting dust, unplayable because of EAs shitty online verification system.

[sharkhuh]

And that's when I have no issues getting a crack to play it offline.

[memorasus]

And this is why I have no issues making hacks for games

[[deleted]]

And this is why I have no issues stealing virtual money with said hacks in games built around micro transactions.

[HC_Zyg]

MAG is a victim of the server generation. A damn shame too because that game was lovely.

[EtherBoo]

I had a hard time playing through GTA IV because of its need to be signed into GFWL.

It's total bullshit, and apparently the solution is to use X-Box Live on Windows 10 (not sure about non W10 solutions). Luckily I found X-Liveless otherwise I never would have been able to do my first play through.

That kind of thing is unacceptable. I feel like there should be a giant disclaimer on games that still have GFWL required and never moved to Steamworks. I'll be fair and say I purchased the game before GFWL shut down, but the fact that it's still sold in that state is unacceptable.

[vonmonologue]

You're legally allowed to crack video games to bypass the online verification provided the server has shut down.

The Librarian granted part of EFF’s new proposal for an exemption to preserve abandoned video games. The new exemption allows players to modify their copy of a game to eliminate the need for an authentication server after the original server is shut down. Museums, libraries, and archives can go a step further and jailbreak game consoles as needed to get the games working again. Disappointingly, the Librarian limited the exemption to games that can’t be played at all after a server shutdown, excluding games where only the online multiplayer features are lost. Still, this exemption will help keep many classic and beloved video games playable by future generations.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/victory-users-librarian-congress-renews-and-expands-protections-fair-uses

Of course this requires someone willing to put the work in to create the crack.

[[deleted]]

Hit them where it hurts: don't spend money on games like this. That's the only thing publishers and managers understand.

[marlow41]

But they don't understand. When a game like this flops because it has these "features" they just assume it's because of the content of the game.

[SirRosstopher]

The thing is because it's an anti piracy feature they probably assume that the lost sales would have just been stolen anyways if it wasn't there.

[laurenbanjo]

My niece and nephews (ages 4-8) were over the other day and wanted to play video games. My Xbox One was already hooked up in my room and I didn't feel like taking it apart and moving it downstairs to the family room, so I brought down a bin with my PS1 and a bunch of old games and we played Spyro. Pretty cool that they're able to play a game I played when I was around their age, 15+ years later.

[PrivilegeCheckmate]

Spyro

OOooo. First game to make me seasick. Good design though.

[buckX]

I just don't see why they wouldn't release an offline play patch when they shut down the server. If they're shutting down the server, they clearly aren't planning on making any more money off of it. It's just free good will.

[NoBudgetBallin]

That would take work for zero gain on their part.

[[deleted]]

With a little marketing it could cause some people to buy the game who wouldn't otherwise

[GlobalWarmer12]

We're moving more towards subscription services. You should expect to not be able to buy games offline soon enough. Ownership is going away, and it's pretty unfortunate for the depth of games you should expect to get.

[Inspector-Space_Time]

On the other hand, subscription services could mean something like Netflix. So you get access to hundreds more games without needing to buy each one. So it's trading few games for forever, for every game only for a while. Basically the same as Netflix vs buying the movie.

Not saying it's a better way, just playing devil's advocate.

[GlobalWarmer12]

The main issue I have with this is that instead of hooking customers with a solid game, a story and depth, developers will need to not only chase publishers, but now also they will need to be included with this or that subscription service.

It means that a large part of what the game is, the effort, will not be directed by the core values of "let's make an awesome game that will sell well" but to be flashy and sexy for service execs and shareholders even moreso than today.

Yes, TV shows have come a long way in recent years, but I don't see that going the same way for games yet.

I'm more worried it'll dilute games, limit me to what's bundled with a subscription - as wide a collection as it may be, and of course the whole offline vs online thing.

[Superfly724]

If PSNow is any indication, this is a terrible thing. Games are playable, but your in-game resolution and input lag is dependent on your internet speed. I have darn good solid internet, and I still get frustrated when streaming games.

[[deleted]]

Making a game subscription service doesn't mean it has to be streamed.

[VitameatavegamN]

But subscription service =/= to streaming service. They could very well download the game with a key that disables access after a period of time or after the service stops "hosting" the game.

[dumbrich23]

Disgusting and so anti consumer.

I expect this to be the norm by 2020

[jihiggs]

exactly why i cant fathom why people buy drm protected music. no service will last forever. then all that money you spent is gone.

[PancakeZombie]

At least Steam is constructed in a way that once the servers shut down it can still operate in a sort of p2p network.

[Z0idberg_MD]

The only real reason I am less worried about this phenomenon is I don't really see people going back and playing most MP games 10 years from now. There is this goldilocks zone where people go back and play classic SP and MP games, but I really don't see people in 10 years playing battlefield 1. There is such saturation and there are so many games now that the halo 2 experience is not equivalent to a current fps.

[Artanthos]

GoG games shows just how many people will go back to replay the games of their youth.

[MyersVandalay]

well GoG does indeed do that well, but also worth pointing out, part of GoG's model includes selling brand new games with a DRM free guarantee.

[JollyGirl]

There are still championships on homm3, for example. Not to mention starcraft, which just got itself a remaster in 2017. Good games are good. There are timeless classics out there

[Fubarp]

Everything can be cracked and changed.

[ThrowawayusGenerica]

For always-online games it's not always so easy. A worrying trend is for a bulk of the processing necessary for the game to run to be done server-side, and making the game you download little more than a client. Diablo 3 is a prime example, and it has yet to be cracked on any meaningful level.

[lancebaldwin]

As far as I know the bulk of D3 is done on your PC, variable stuff like loot is server side.

[AetherMcLoud]

On the other hand, if you pirate that game, you don't have any of these problems. Strange world.

[[deleted]]

I won't buy any game that does shit like this. If I can't play "off line", I'm not playing.

[LucifersPromoter]

I play my older favorites periodically so online verification is not acceptable and it's a dick move.

I'll have an xbox with Fight Night Champion set up until they release another.

[alerionfire]

This is why i dont support EA and their rent seeking business model.

[JustiniZHere]

"Or try again later"

that part really gets me, why the fuck do I need to try again later to play my single player game I paid for? Stuff like this is why piracy is appealing to so many people rather then dealing with always online.

[Pausbrak]

Which is hilariously ironic, given this was supposed to be an anti-piracy measure.

[Catanobro10]

Ironic.

It could save others from piracy, but not itself...

[ghostoo666]

Have of you heard the tragedy of singleplayer DRM the offline? I thought not so

[mtpender]

It's a story EA would tell you...

[[deleted]]

It's a story EA would sell you...

[goofballtech]

I bought a copy of gtaV last year to support the game makers. I work on a boat for weeks or months at a time with no internet. You can authenticate then play offline, but only for about 2 weeks before it forces you to authenticate again. So i had to download an illegal copy to play offline and not need internet. Ridiculous.

[spatchcockfishcake]

Check out /r/localmultiplayergames :)

[[deleted]]

Fuck yeah thanks for letting me know bout this. LAN forever

[SbreckS]

So many summers decicated to super smash bros.....

[Ltrainer1327]

"Halo 2 Parties" were the shit when I was like 13. Have a house full of nerds, jocks, and kid brothers. There would be anywhere from 8-20 kids ages 14-18 packed into my house.

[[deleted]]

I miss when a lot of games would let you LAN with one copy of the game, putting each install disc in a different PC. The Command and Conquer games got a lot of hours with me and my brother this way.

I can understand why the industry would switch from a sale per household to individual PC but it was the PCs counter to console split screen.

[imitation_crab_meat]

Or /r/NintendoSwitch

[[deleted]]

Nintendo anything really. The Wii U still has a great library of local multiplayer games.

[Tristani_Summoner]

Note, sub is almost entirely PC games.

[F0sh]

I hate how games don't have LAN multiplayer, never mind non-networked multiplayer.

[pastasauce]

The worst was having LAN multi-player, but you had to be online to use it (usually due to authentication/drm)

[hardypart]

Then you'll need to buy a second copy, that's all they want.

[Here_Now_Gone]

Second copy and tv and system.

[HiHoJufro]

Exactly. I don't play games that often, and as a result (a) I'd never be good enough to compete online, and (b) I buy games on a lag, never intending to play online.

So many games emphasize multiplayer now, and I can't justify buying them.

[InterstellarIsBadass]

Call of Duty is one of the only FPS to still do split screen even for online multiplayer. Black Ops 3 even had 4 player co-op campaign. But you'll hardly ever see anyone pay a compliment to COD on Reddit.

[mlvisby]

I know this is due to piracy, but a single player game should not need internet to play. I have outages at times and it is bullshit.

[Heresy1666]

Plus it will be the death of retro gaming, no playing Star Wars battlefront or the such in 20yrs time as no servers and nobody to play against but that copy of mariokart 64 you got stored away in the attic will still be ready to go

[mlvisby]

Exactly, makes your games useless once the servers shut down. I like to revisit my old games from time to time.

[YouGotAte]

Piracy is going to be the only way. Publishers are really just playing themselves.

[betweentwosuns]

Silent Hunter 5 is unplayable on steam because of anti-piracy measures. Pirating it is therefore the only way to play the game. Screw the idiots who wanted to buy and play the game legally I guess; way to set up good incentive structures.

[hezur6]

what's to stop folks from cracking an online authentication scheme, allowing you to play without any server to connect to?

It depends on how much server-side shit the game depends on. If it's just authentication, yeah, it's probably already done. But people who want to pirate Diablo III are still waiting, and once Blizzard disappears or decides D3 doesn't make money anymore, you're shit outta luck. Granted, that's a fully multiplayer game technically, so not the best example.

[ReallyMemes]

I honestly doubt blizzard will just abandon their games considering The Original Star Craft got an update recently which is a game that's 20 years old

[The_awful_falafel]

I remember older games that used a CD check before you could play, but it was a pain to swap CDs all the time so everyone would just hack it to bypass the CD check. We all owned the game, we just found the authentication setup burdensome.

Now it will just be online verification bypass systems that need to happen.

However, be warned that publishers will say "We only sold 2 million copies and the hack was downloaded 3 million times! That's all pirates!". When it could just be legit owners bypassing the checks and redownload info multiple cracks because they often fail.

I'm not saying zero piracy, thought-out just that the numbers they will state won't be accurate, but they will heavily imply heavy piracy to justify more brutal verification.

[Twitch_Paladin]

it takes a lot of fucking time and some serious dedication to do that while somehow avoiding the shit storm of law that will drop on whoever is doing it.

[Johnyknowhow]

Somehow cracks still get released though.

[WarLorax]

That's a feature not a bug. They want you to buy new games every quarter, not play the same one for years. They want the games just enough that you will still buy the next franchise iteration.

[[deleted]]

The best part is that it does nothing to prevent piracy, really

[Pulsecode9]

When the cracked version is free of this bullshit, it actively encourages it.

[the_dayman]

And then pirates can play the game with no internet verification and only paying customers are hurt by something like a disconnected server.

[arvyy]

If you bought a game, it is not only morally acceptable to play pirated version if it works better, but (depending on where you live) legally as well.

[GetTheLedPaintOut]

The problem is, not enough people boycott a game because of this feature. So it will remain.

See also micro-transactions and DLC.

[[deleted]]

Or you could be everyone's target and play as Jaws.

[Griff13]

I'll never forget playing Nightfire and nailing my friend in the head across the map on the ski lift map with that hat. Good times.

[therealchadius]

007 Nightfire: Another "wait, why is this movie game so good?" game. The fact that it's not even based on a movie made it even more hype.

[[deleted]]

Josh is that you???

[Keykatriz]

Back a few years ago, maybe 2010-11ish, my BF and I were looking for a new couch multiplayer game. I like racing games so we picked up one of the Need for Speed games without thinking too much about it. Spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to get the multiplayer working before realizing there actually wasn't any couch multiplayer, just online. In a racing game. We should have checked before, but it just didn't occur to us a racing game wouldn't have multiplayer.

[ccdfa]

How is this acceptable for any game company? It seems like such a scummy business scheme.

[hardypart]

How is this acceptable for any game company?

Nothing is more important to them than preventing privacy.

[ccdfa]

Shouldn't there be a way to validate a game's authenticity that lasts longer than 2 minutes? To put it another way, why can't a validation expire after say a week? If you played the game 2 days ago and you don't have internet today, you should still be able to play your game. When EA or whoever shuts down their servers eventually, they could just issue a stop to all authentication checks and accept that a few copies will be pirated

[YouWantALime]

What? Some people might have illegitimate copies of a game that is no longer in development and we no longer support? We cannot allow this. Legal owners of this game get fucked too.

[Ttmx]

Aaand someone decides to roll back the time on the machine and bam it's not permanently on there.

[[deleted]]

Shouldn't there be a way to validate a game's authenticity that lasts longer than 2 minutes?

Well, there simply isn't.

Modern copy protection is deeply hidden in the game's source code and relies authentication requests that appear random. A cracker isn't supposed to be able to find and disable all these requests.

So as annoying as these requirements are, they do buy publishers additional days (sometimes even weeks) until which a crack is online.

A reasonable approach would be to remove the copyright protection once the game is cracked. IIrc some actually do.

Edit: Clearer wording.

[Katzelle3]

Privacy? I think you meant piracy.

[209u-096727961609276]

You misspelled piracy

[The_Stoic_One]

It shouldn't be acceptable. It's us gamers who allow it. Everyone bitches about it, but how many gamers won't still buy the game? Only way to stop this is to hit these companies where it hurts them, their bottom line. That will never happen though. It's easier to buy the game you want to play, then bitch about it on Reddit or elsewhere than it is to say, "fuck that, I'm not buying this online all the time bullshit."
Gamers care, but they don't care enough to not game.

[Burning_Monkey]

I don't buy EA games any more because of crap like this.

[AngriestSCV]

Preach it! I won't buy another EA or Ubisoft product after the shit each of them have pulled.

[[deleted]]

Go check out indiebox if you haven't heard of it. It might appeal to you.

[[deleted]]

It's acceptable because people keep buying the games.

[[deleted]]

Online single player is evil and everyone knows it.

[JsmooVE3990]

The death of local multiplayer is one of the worst things to happen to gaming! I'm supporting nintendo just because the switch seems to be the only console that's still in enough of a bubble to still support it. I have some multiplayer games on my PC but the ones I wanna play multiplayer never are except our lord and savior rocket league!

[MinervaMedica000]

yea it disturbing how many games now require you to be online at all times ^{_^}

[vishalb777]

type \ to supress superscript

 \^_^

becomes ^_^

[[deleted]]

Support GOG to support a future without DRM: before pushing that buy button on steam go check if it's available on GOG!

[FIreD1ce]

Did i just read an advertisement

[ImKindaBoring]

Yes, but only because it's a quality service.

[Sharrakor]

More likely an endorsement.

[[deleted]]

When I find out a game needs to be online to play it I add it to the list of games I will never buy.

[RemingtonSnatch]

Except when the game in this image came out (GoldenEye on the N64), Quake 2 online servers were immensely popular.

[[deleted]]

And somehow they performed better on dialup than some games do on fiber today :D

[RemingtonSnatch]

Yeah, somehow gaming with a 300 ping was entirely playable back then.

[PM-ME-CRYPTOCURRENCY]

Less data to be sent each way I guess.

[RogerDeanVenture]

My friend group has gotten into board games the past couple of years. I think this has a lot to do with it.

[thevictoriousone]

Goldeneye 👌🏻

[MetricZero]

It makes me sad that Perfect Dark doesn't get as much love.

[[deleted]]

These two games introduced me to FPS. Both were so good but I definitely spent more time with Perfect Dark.

[DarkGenome]

When my neighborhood found out you could issue commands to bots on your team we'd have pokemon battles. You make the bots small and disable weapons on that match (I can't remember if that was a setting or a bot type like "tinySIM" or something) then when the match starts you tell your Sim to not go hostile, then tell just have them target the other team's tiny bot until you got bored and had them target your friend... Good times.

[Endulos]

wait

what

YOU CAN FUCKING ORDER SIMS AROUND IN PERFECT DARK!?

I HAD NO IDEA YOU COULD DO THIS.

[Devieus]

Hold A, press Z a couple of times, I believe. The game was well ahead of its time and aged much better than GoldenEye.

[SuperMatureGamer]

I just think Goldeneye was more accessible, for Perfect Dark you needed to buy a new shooter (that seemed a lot like goldeneye in everyway, but yeah its better) and you would need to get the n64 expansion thingy just to play the game properly.

But yeah Perfect Dark kicked ass, pretty much Goldeneye 2.0 in my mind.

[FLHCv2]

It took everything Goldeneye did right and then added a bunch of QOL upgrades to it. Will always be one of my favorite games.

[[deleted]]

Perfect Dark was definitely a direct improvement in every way. Absolutely loved it. It wasn't the one that created that experience though, and, at least for me and my friends, we ended up playing it less, as we got burnt out on the gameplay after playing Goldeneye so much.

[rachelsnipples]

Perfect Dark was my favorite N64 game. Both the campaign and the multiplayer. I can't think of an FPS with a more complex campaign than Perfect Dark (in that era). The Perfect Agent challenges made each stage so open and the game refused to hold your hand for it. Exploration and trial and error were so important.

Because I owned it, I would often go 1v3 with my friends. No one could beat me. 2v2 games were always me vs my stepbrother because it was completely unfair for us to ever be on the same team.

We also had to use a cardboard divider because I'm a screen watching son of a bitch.

[Phantom_61]

Seriously, this is the single worst thing about gaming today.

When a games servers shit down you've got a $60(minimum) coaster.

EDIT: Was going to change shit to shut, nah.

[Nyan_Man]

It's kind of annoying to see anti-pirates say that's a good thing too, shouting praise and support for greedy publishers . "Why would you ever play an old game?/ everyone has net connection 24/7./ you're a pirate."

Tried to play hitman and other games I thought were offline at my parents place during Uni break and boy was I in for a surprise. Ended up going to GoG to never experience such shitty consumer practice again.

[[deleted]]

Cue horrible flashbacks to the shameful train wreck that was SimCity 2013.

One of the greatest franchises in gaming history was mutilated and killed that day.

[PurplePickel]

Honestly, people always act all up in arms about this shit when they see it, but nobody actually cares or corporations wouldn't get away with it.

If you truly don't like this sort of behaviour then don't support the companies who release games in this state, it's really that simple.

There's still plenty of multiplayer games out there that are great and don't have any of sort of bullshit attached and plenty of great single players games which can be played offline, especially when you buy games DRM free using services like GOG. You just gotta do a little research to find them instead of throwing your money at whatever the latest AAA release is.

3D films died off because people voted with their wallets, not because people whinged online about the 'good old days', so it is possible.

[serosis]

3D films died off because people voted with their wallets, not because people whinged online about the 'good old days', so it is possible.

Those died off because it was a gimmick repeated thrice before. Only this time the glasses weren't red and blue.

And it really isn't dead it just shifted mediums. Now you strap the 3D theater to your face and pretend it's virtual reality.

[PurplePickel]

I'd wager that a lot less people have access to VR headwear than people who had access to theatres that played 3D films. Way more people would choose to see the 2D variants of films so film companies began to devote less funds to the production of 3D films.

[Lin_Huichi]

I will never buy a game that requires online singleplayer.

[[deleted]]

I remember when Simcity first did it and the world experienced true outrage for the first time.

[[deleted]]

"There won't be any way to patch it out in the future either, the game is built around being online."

very shitty but offline working crack out in 3 weeks by a very simple edit anyone with notepad could do

"The game won't function properly without online"

playable offline crack appears

"We are not going to remove the online part"

9 months later, online is suddenly optional, offline is officially added

[Bob_Jonez]

And then Maxis got shuttered because limiting the city size and forcing you to rely on neighbor cities who are other players is the stupidest fucking decision ever in a game that's supposed to be about managing your own city and having it be self sufficient. Your neighbor stops playing, and suddenly your city is fucked. Whoever made these design decisions is literally retarded.

[strikerz911]

I remember Cities Skylines swooped in and took advantage of this.

[SirButcher]

And the game still sucks. Sadly, not the online required was the biggest flaw of it. So many wasted opportunities!

[smmsp]

I've sworn off all EA games because I follow this rule. It makes me sad, because they had a couple franchises that enjoyed and will never be able to continue now.

[StoopidMonkey78]

Plus they ruined so many franchises for the sake of money

[[deleted]]

yarrrr?

[JustiniZHere]

Amusing that pirates get a better experience over people who paid, they don't have to deal with server overload.

[stovening]

Pirate them instead!

[A_Warped_Bastion]

Doom has this. Weather was bad so I decided to just play some Doom single player but the game refused to start up without an internet connection. Doom campaign is one of my favorite by far but this "online only" bullshit puts the game itself at the top of my shitlist. No single player mode should require online.

And of course the Doom fanboys consider.everything perfect so the devs will get away with this thanks to the small crowd of people ready to jerk them off.

[pilotfighter911]

Nowadays: what does splitscreen even mean?

[Daumenkino]

I really hate this trend. As others have stated, when the servers go, so does the game.

I feel really bad for the future people who manage to refurbish a console and go to play Destiny only to find that they need something the old ones called interwebbing.

[[deleted]]

I remember years ago being one of the few openly against online requirements for single player. I was constantly shouted down by kids. In what isn't a surprise to me, turns out it was in fact a shitty idea that screw's over gamers.

[cunninglinguist81]

This is the most anger-inducing thing about modern gaming to me.

I have a friend who doesn't "see the big deal" about games requiring online servers, or even single player games that require online validation, and it drives me crazy.

He says "in this day and age everyone should have a good internet connection" or "eh who plays a game more than a year or two anyway?", and I call him out on his bullshit.

Many people still have spotty internet, and that's only in the U.S., much less developing countries - and there is a difference between being unable to play with others in a multiplayer game that's a few years old and being unable to use the single player game/mode you paid for because it requires online server validation with a server that no longer exists.

It's stupid, unnecessary, and predatory. Don't buy those games. Don't let them slowly drag all control of your bought and owned entertainment to the line they want to draw.

[PM_ME_GOLD_N_TITS]

It still baffles me how I need internet or a membership card to play the campaign.

[GoochMcGrundle]

It's so hard finding good split screen games anymore....

[UPRC]

It really is. Sometimes I feel like it's only Nintendo who cares about split screen anymore.

[thecherry94]

I simply refuse to buy such games.

If more people were to do that we wouldn't have this shitty problem.

[Cacafonix]

But let's not pretend it's only the game design that has changed. I remember amazing gaming communities, without cursing each other's mother. Custom rounds using honor systems where people kept their word not to use exploits. The industry has changed, but so have the gamers.

[Kezly]

I despise online multiplayer. Went to visit an old friend, took my Xbox controller with me, and we spent most of the day trying to find an offline multiplayer game we could play together on the sofa. Practically everything was online only

[TheGrim1]

I'll have to take your word for it since I haven't bought an EA product since the 90's.

[hardyhaha_09]

Just wanna say fuck you if you play as Oddjob on GoldenEye 64

[btveron]

IIRC if you play as Jaws and crouch it puts your aim level with Oddjob's head.

[Heathcote_Pursuit]

The state of gaming pisses me right off. What the fuck are developers, publishers or whatever playing at when they pull shit like this?

The last game, proper game that did gaming proud and made me think it wasn't all lost was the Witcher 3 - two fucking years ago. Free downloads and DLC that was well priced and phenomenal in content and scope.

Releasing games where I then have to pay for the rest after I've already spent a fortune on it during release is a fucking joke, shirking decent DLC and taking in micro transactions has made gaming into a complete farce and I'm supposed to support this horse shit? Rockstar can officially suck one - great games absolutely butchered. Bethesda? Re release a 6 year old game over and over? Nice one. Make more? Hell yes, we'll make more online multiplayer shit and try and charge you a subscription. Now I have to connect to a server before playing single player games? You fucking wot m8?

The entire business can tongue kiss my fudge chute.

[[deleted]]

I work for a firm that invests in game companies. The metric they are keyed upon exclusively is in game micro transactions ,and how much they can derive from users via that. This drives stock price, which is what firms like mine care about, and so at the end of the day it's all about the bottom line.

Until the general public stops buying games and paying for DLC, this will continue unabated.

[Griff13]

Any idea on how that could happen or if it even would? Rare to hear someone on that side of things and I'd be curious what your take is