EA & Always Online DRM... (Need for Speed Reboot)

[smackyslap]

Yes, there is a growing stable of online only games, but unless EA can provide some extremely compelling reasons for why NfS will be online only, it will be another SimCity. Where they get called on their bullshit, the game fails to meet their sales expectations because of negative press, and they end up patching in offline play.

Don't forget they will axe the studio because of those failed expectations.

[Edge-]

Don't forget they will axe the studio because of those failed expectations.

Most big publishers will, games are incredibly risky ventures and a failure can be a huge financial hit.

I'm not absolving EA of their shitty legacy of buying and subsequently closing down popular studio after popular studio, but that's the reality of the industry to a certain extent. It's not uncommon to see smaller/mid-sized developers closed down or suffer huge layoffs should their game perform poorly.

[melodramocracy]

I can't imagine why anyone is surprised at this requirement. Get used to it.

[smackyslap]

Most big publishers will, games are incredibly risky ventures and a failure can be a huge financial hit.

I'm not absolving EA of their shitty legacy of buying and subsequently closing down popular studio after popular studio, but that's the reality of the industry to a certain extent. It's not uncommon to see smaller/mid-sized developers closed down or suffer huge layoffs should their game perform poorly.

I agree but the only problem in cases like this and sim city is a publisher issue but sadly the studio will suffer for shortcomings themselves can't do much about once it happens.

[Remilia]

I can't imagine why anyone is surprised at this requirement. Get used to it.

I rather not.
Terrible for the consumer, especially as one.

[SirRobin]

Meh... The only ones falling for bullshitting like this are the ones who want too. I could say that this would convince me not to get the game but its not like I had any interest in it to begin with.

[Mahourai]

There's a difference between more and more games including and online multiplayer aspect and games that shift to online only.

Yes, there is a growing stable of online only games, but unless EA can provide some extremely compelling reasons for why NfS will be online only, it will be another SimCity. Where they get called on their bullshit, the game fails to meet their sales expectations because of negative press, and they end up patching in offline play.

The Sim City narrative is interesting:

"We've sold more than two million units, and the number of people logging in and playing is holding steady. SimCity is a success. However, underestimating demand in the first month was a major miss. We hope that the game and the service we've provided since then meets the fans' high standards."

- EA Labels president Frank Gibeau (Source)

It may have failed to meet expectations broadly, but the actual problem period almost certainly stemmed from the opposite happening - the launch exceeded expectations and roasted their servers because they weren't prepared for it to do as well as it did.

[Edge-]

It may have failed to meet expectations broadly, but the actual problem period almost certainly stemmed from the opposite happening - the launch exceeded expectations and roasted their servers because they weren't prepared for it to do as well as it did.

The subsequent closure of the primary Maxis studio responsible for SimCity (as there are still peripheral studios that work to support The Sims) is a pretty good indicator that there were financial issues with the game in the longterm despite what appear to be strong sales and a huge initial rush of players breaking their servers.

[melodramocracy]

I rather not.
Terrible for the consumer, especially as one.

How is this terrible for the consumer in practice? I mean... always online angered folks in D3, but it didn't seem to impact sales.

[Ferocity]

How is this terrible for the consumer in practice? I mean... always online angered folks in D3, but it didn't seem to impact sales.

It is terrible because it goes against the very definition of "Buying the game". You don't receive the game for which you paid.

It also leads to abominations like latency and lag in single-player games, inability to play it on computer without internet and having no control over the time you play (maintenance? queues? server hamsters died??).

I wish more people used their heads before making such "purchases". By these "purchases" they widely support malicious fraud from publishers and promote piracy.

And if same Blizzard from this example will suddenly shuts down with its servers, Diablo 3 will be far beyond access. Do you ever buy a book which turns to dust when its writer dies? No, sounds like insanity. So why this insanity has place with video games? It is high-scale fraudulent activity, and there is no excuse for this.

[mvaliz]

Because when it comes to the Need for Speed franchise the first thing I think of is having a "narative experience". >.>

[Dsonsion]

Why are still people buying EA games? I think gamers might suffer from masochism.

[melodramocracy]

It is terrible because it goes against the very definition of "Buying the game". You don't receive the game for which you paid.

There's a resale issue here, sure.. but again, you don't really "own" any game you buy from a legal perspective. Nit picky, of course

It also leads to abominations like latency and lag in single-player games, inability to play it on computer without internet and having no control over the time you play (maintenance? queues? server hamsters died??).

I can see this as a valid complaint, sure. Maintenance time for a single player game seems rather absurd.

I wish more people used their heads before making such "purchases". By these "purchases" they widely support malicious fraud from publishers and promote piracy.

These measures are in place because of piracy, not in spite of it. Adobe now more or less forces you to subscribe to their applications rather than outright buying them. Several audio app companies take the same approach. I really do see this becoming the standard in the future rather than an exception. I'm not all that comfortable with it either, but I can certainly see why it's done. And as you say, it's up to consumers to either promote it, or purposefully abandon it.

[Zenotetsuken]

I can't remember the last time i bought an EA game... not because i haven't been interested, but because every time i see one i say to myself "Errr... That's an EA game..."

and then decide my money is better spent elsewhere.

Yeah, same. My friend always tries to get me to buy EA games with him. For some reason "I will never buy another EA game" doesn't register with so many people. Hell, I will never buy another Ubisoft game either, so it isn't JUST EA. Shady as shit companies, who prove EVERY TIME that they release a game that they have no interest in quality control or customer service, get nothing from me.

- - - Updated - - -

There's a resale issue here, sure.. but again, you don't really "own" any game you buy from a legal perspective. Nit picky, of course



I can see this as a valid complaint, sure. Maintenance time for a single player game seems rather absurd.



These measures are in place because of piracy, not in spite of it. Adobe now more or less forces you to subscribe to their applications rather than outright buying them. Several audio app companies take the same approach. I really do see this becoming the standard in the future rather than an exception. I'm not all that comfortable with it either, but I can certainly see why it's done. And as you say, it's up to consumers to either promote it, or purposefully abandon it.

And yet even games with always on will be hacked and pirated, so the only people who are affected by being forced always online are the people who legit buy the game.

[Ferocity]

There's a resale issue here, sure.. but again, you don't really "own" any game you buy from a legal perspective. Nit picky, of course

Tbh, I do, from absolute point of view. Each part of game code from first till last byte is available to me. Just like each word in the book. Surely you didn't write that book, you didn't make that chess or made that video, but you own them. In absolute sense of word.

I am not sure why people need some legal definitions for what is very obvious, perhaps that's why we have DRM blooming.

These measures are in place because of piracy, not in spite of it. Adobe now more or less forces you to subscribe to their applications rather than outright buying them.

Thankfully, Adobe is no longer the king.

And piracy... yeah, choice between getting pirated game, where I have no lag, no latency and no malware, or getting it with malware, which causes fps in game to drop down, lag to appear and so on.

Sure, when publishers will stop infecting games with malware, there will be less demand in piracy.

I'm not all that comfortable with it either, but I can certainly see why it's done.

It is only few big companies who are doing that. Same MS also sells Office on subscription basis now. Sucks for them, I wanted to buy new MS Office, but they didn't get my money because I don't like "renting" such software. Thankfully I have key for non-sub based older version of Office. Outside of that, there is OpenOffice, there are mobile apps which allows to work Office documents etc. There is a whole world outside of those few big companies, just need to turn eyes away from invasive marketing.

[Remilia]

How is this terrible for the consumer in practice? I mean... always online angered folks in D3, but it didn't seem to impact sales.

Sales mean nothing to whether it's good or bad consumer practice.
Taking more control of a product that the consumer bought is bad. Having to jump through hoops just to play a game is annoying and does nothing against the people that pirate. We know D3 doesn't need to be online, the console ports already shows that.
If I go to Taiwan for ____ weeks and I can't play a game on the laptop cause lawlnointernet, then I would be a tad irked. It's something me and my brother do quite often, we played around D2 when we were at Taiwan cause we had nothing to do at the time. Even if it doesn't affect you, it affects others, and the people that pirate it just goes lawlwhatever.

[Mahourai]

Javing to jump through hoops just to play a game is annoying and does nothing against the people that pirate. We know D3 doesn't need to be online, the console ports already shows that.

D3's console version isn't always-online because you can't just torrent the console version and hit install. If the PS4 had no authentication and you could just download the game, transfer it into the PS4 and boot it up sight unseen, rest assured the console version would also have the same kind of onerous access restrictions.

Also, it's strange to say that these methods aren't deterring piracy. You played the pirate version of Diablo 3 on PC yet? Probably not, because it doesn't exist.

[Ferocity]

Also, it's strange to say that these methods aren't deterring piracy. You played the pirate version of Diablo 3 on PC yet? Probably not, because it doesn't exist.

Assuming it is so (it isn't), let's say you decide to buy Diablo 3 today and tomorrow suddenly ActiBlizzard closes down. Guess what? Due to act of fraud, you don't have the game anymore. You paid for absolutely nothing.

It is like fighting with book piracy, by locking all books in libraries, selling them from libraries, but not allowing to take them home. Surely it would deter pirates?

Also people who wouldn't pay for game because can pirate it, they wouldn't pay for game because they can't pirate it. On other side, people, who would pay for game, are extremely discouraged to do so.

Also first 2 Diablos will be remembered, while Diablo 3 (assuming it isn't pirated) will die the real death. Noone will play it, because absolutely noone bought Diablo 3 on PC. I don't know why people are so easily brainwashed into supporting fraud schemes.

I am sure that in case of ActiBlizzard shut-down there would be a number of suicides and massive unrest among those who play Diablo 3, farming paragon levels and what not, when they will see that they wasted time and were deceived into thinking that they have the game. Perhaps something like this should happen sooner than later so people would understand that this fraud should be stopped, and easiest way to stop it - not support it and not defend it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Also, it's strange to say that these methods aren't deterring piracy. You played the pirate version of Diablo 3 on PC yet? Probably not, because it doesn't exist.

Next time you might want to validate your claims before you post them, because a 10 second google search of "Diablo 3 too rent" listed half a dozen downloads for it. I have absolutely no intention of finding out whether or not those downloads are the actual game files or malware just labeled so to snare victims, but it says something regardless.

PS3 version of D3 doesn't have DRM because while yes; DRM is pointless because one can simply hand a used copy to a friend once they've beaten the story, it's also because as I said earlier; one of the reasons why they stored toons on their servers was to simplify multiplayer, because bad things could happen if you allowed potentially hacked character connect with others and so on and so forth. See post #16 for more on that. No, it does not vindicate their decision but it does make it somewhat understandable.

[Bigbazz]

I think we should wait until we know what kinda game it is first. People are fine with League of Legends, World of Warcraft (and every other Blizzard game), iRacing, Eve, Elder Scrolls Online being always online titles and they don't even bat an eyelid at these games for being always online because they are online games... But what is to say that this NFS game is not the same?

It seems strange to me that before we know anything about the game we already have people with the pitchforks out because it's online. People got mad because of Diablo 3 for understandable reasons, though Blizzard obviously built it from the ground up to work like World of Warcraft in that the client is nothing without the server.

If this is just a standard typical single player game with online features then I can understand the frustration, but at the same time it could well be a more online orientated game from the ground up... Perhaps even similar to NFS World, who knows. Most of the NFS franchise games are throwaway titles though, so I can understand why people would be annoyed by this, but you should give them some benefit of the doubt for now.