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[jhxmt]

if they fuck up, if their idea of service is to say "no, we aren't making money on DLC, so you can't play," you're free to move on to a different game made by a different person, sometimes Re: sci-fi minecraft clone #487 even in the same genre and setting. That's their compulsion to help you - there's ridiculous amounts of competition for your attention, even coming from their own archives (why do you think they've started reselling older games, like it's some huge favor to the old fans?), and you're free to walk.

But, importantly, in that instance you're not free to continue playing the game that you thought you'd paid for, because it turns out you only ever paid for the service.  It's not that you're locked in to a service, it's that when that service chooses to close you're locked out from a game you may have loved - not because you've chosen to, or because of anything you've done, but because another party has unilaterally decided that it wants to stop providing it.  This is the hazard of the game-as-service model (along with, yes, everything about the marketing aspect of it that you've already outlined, with which I fully agree).

Also, on the reissuing of archived games: yes, there's a small part of that which is likely due to the current popularity of 'nostalgia gaming'.  But I fear the largest part of it is precisely as a result of BFEL's point: the only reason that reissuing old games on new consoles is profitable is because the ability to play those old games has more or less vanished.  If I've got a PS2 copy of a game and my PS2 breaks, my options are (a) fix the PS2 myself, (b) buy a second-hand one somewhere or (c) buy the game again on PS3/4/latest.

This same situation is much reduced (albeit not eliminated) in the PC market - purely because PCs tend to be compatible for a much longer term than consoles, due to lack of 'churn'.  Not entirely eliminated, though, and e.g. GOG make a good business model out of selling refurbished old games that work on modern software.  But even there, they're selling you the game as a product, not a service.  Their service is what they provide in order to get the product to you - it's a distribution channel (and some pre-sales development to get the game working afresh), not a lease.

[alexandertnt]

But on the other hand, it's not as apocalyptic as you guys are making it out to be - if they fuck up, if their idea of service is to say "no, we aren't making money on DLC, so you can't play," you're free to move on to a different game made by a different person, sometimes Re: sci-fi minecraft clone #487 even in the same genre and setting. That's their compulsion to help you - there's ridiculous amounts of competition for your attention, even coming from their own archives (why do you think they've started reselling older games, like it's some huge favor to the old fans?), and you're free to walk.

Thats all great and fine if you want to play popular blockbuster games, but what about niches (because not everybody wants to play "a minecraft game")? Their are games out there which just don't have a replacement, and probably won't have companies rushing over to make one anytime soon.

[Eagleon]

Thats all great and fine if you want to play popular blockbuster games, but what about niches (because not everybody wants to play "a minecraft game")? Their are games out there which just don't have a replacement, and probably won't have companies rushing over to make one anytime soon.

Tough cookies I guess. Didn't say it doesn't suck, only that it'll get better as people naturally learn to feel repugnance towards this sort of mindset after finding Yet Another Fuck-You From Ubisoft lurking in their library. Nothing really 'ruins' gaming for long before the Firaxis' of your favored genre reemerge to tap into the market that's already been jaded. The same sort of talk has for decades surrounded strategy gamer discussions (strategy games aren't exactly blockbuster at the moment, haven't been in the past - it sort of fluctuates), but there are companies still pounding away at what they know best and gaining new audience, carefully trying new ideas, inspiring new indie developers to test the waters, blah blah inspirational sermon.

And sorry guys, I'm not a console gamer for this exact reason :/ Though there are definitely still people selling/fixing/sometimes upgrading old systems. A Dreamcast is like $25 on eBay last I heard, even though it's still jawesome, and people have modified it to put out VGA. If it helps I feel your pain at Microsoft's lack of concern for DOS applications, since DOSBox can be shaky at best for some titles.

[Rolan7]

Rant agreeing with BFEL about Xbox/PS4:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Or just play and enjoy older games, it's not like they're going away.

That's exactly the problem. They ARE going away, at least on the console front, because the big companies that you seem to think "don't matter" are CHOOSING TO MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO PLAY THEM.

The point of Microsoft and Playstation putting out a new console every year or two is so that they can systematically remove gamers ability to fall back on older games, so that they HAVE to buy the new stuff.

I have in my room right now a game I NEVER got to play, because the console that runs it broke at an inopportune time, and they NO LONGER MAKE THAT CONSOLE. How are you supposed to "just play the older stuff" if theres no support in place to continue playing said older stuff?

Granted, the answer to all this is basically "transfer all your game-playing to computer" and that is exactly what I'm doing, but you should be aware of how epically it sucks that most of my recent purchases are games I already own, but got them on the dickmachine 3000 and they made the dickmachine 4000 so now I have to buy them all again (For computer, because fuck that business model)

It's a shame so many XBOX games will be lost, but Microsoft wasn't subtle about that.  Halo 1 for PC has no coop.  NO. COOP.  Halo 2 PC required VISTA for absolutely no reason than to sell Vista (It "required" DX11, but that was easily hacked out).  They never cared about preserving these gaming experiences, made by an amazing studio, they only wanted to dominate the console market and sell a terrible operating system.  Compared to XP and 7, at the least.  Heck, they only bought Bungie to stop them from making Mac games.

XNA is a pretty good thing though, so due credit to Microsoft for that.  XNA games run fine on PCs of course.  It would have been sad for Braid to be unavailable on PC... Wouldn't have gotten me to buy an Xbox, but still.

I checked the list of PS3-exclusive games, the games too new to emulate and too old to be supported by the PS4:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:PlayStation_3-only_games
There are some games on that list I'd love to play some time (MGS4 and God of War 3 particularly)

But this list is *nothing* in comparison to the massive number of games which are playable, and will continue to be playable forever.  We have good emulation for the SNES, PS1, PS2, Gamecube, and Dreamcast.  A good computer will play any old DOS game in DOSBox. 

There is a great gulf of lost gaming in the Windows 3.1 era, up to 98 or so... Some games work, many don't.  Many require fan patches, the result of inconceivable community effort to preserve our gaming heritage.  Some have been patched by their developers.  Some even work with Windows Compatibility mode!  It's a bit hit-or-miss.

But the Unreal engine, made in 1998, still runs just fine.  And looks pretty good!  Goldsrc (Half Life 1) works fine too, and... well, it works (and has, by itself, years worth of free single player mods).  Half Life 2's Source is better of course, as are the newer Unreal engines, and there's an incredible amount of free content for those too... along with hundreds of commercial games which we can expect to still work in 2030 at this rate.

My point is that relatively few games have been lost, and we have an amazing amount of games in the past to choose from.  I couldn't care less if the newest triple-A shooter movie-in-disguise doesn't run in 5 years, because I don't care if it runs *now* (Probably wouldn't, on my computer!)  The cinematic aspects are preserved through Youtube and the like.  The games that actually matter are using robust engines, or are indie proof-of-concepts which will go open-source or be refined through imitation.

So we aren't being forced to go along with these new money-making trends.  That said, many of them seem perfectly reasonable to me, like release-day DLC.  It's a way to pay less if you don't need the extra stuff.  Do people buy it when they probably shouldn't?  Sure, but that doesn't hurt us discerning consumers.  Consider it a tax on the rich or impulsive.

[alexandertnt]

Thats all great and fine if you want to play popular blockbuster games, but what about niches (because not everybody wants to play "a minecraft game")? Their are games out there which just don't have a replacement, and probably won't have companies rushing over to make one anytime soon.

Tough cookies I guess.

Thats why I don't support it.

Nothing really 'ruins' gaming for long before the Firaxis' of your favored genre reemerge to tap into the market that's already been jaded.

If your favourite book vanished from existance, could you really just go out and find another similar "close enough" book and make that your favourite? There is no market to produce your favourite book.

So it's all great and fine that Firaxis make games, but I don't want to play "a Firaxis game", I already have the game I want to play and think its rubbish that that game could stop functioning for no technical reasons.

[Neonivek]

And MMOs USUALLY have an excuse as to why they HAVE to be a service...

Because they are sold entirely on the basis of playing with many people at once, so yeah of course the game can't last forever because that service can't stay up forever.

Except OHH WAIT some MMOs actually later on give you the ability to run your own when they shut down.

But what do videogames have as an excuse?

[sebcool]

The way I see it, there are three ways to do this:

1. You make a finished game and continue to update it. (The Last Federation, etc.)
2. You make a game that will never be finished, for various reasons, but it might as well be. (Every MOBA and MMO ever, Dwarf Fortress)
3. You sell an unfinished or bugged game and promise to update it. (Every Early Access game ever, most later Total War games, every Paradox Title ever)

I'm a big fan of the first (because who doesn't want to get more content?), I can accept the second (It's pretty much necessary for most of those games, and most of them are free, anyway), and the third depends on whether I can trust the dev to actually deliver. (I don't trust most early access devs to do it, but I do trust Paradox, CA and Squad to do it). It might even change over time, a game that does it the third way might end up doing it the first way, as it gets finished, or Dwarf Fortress might actually be finished some day.

This system, especially the third one, really depends on how much you are willing to trust the dev. If you can't trust them to deliver, you should probably wait until it's finished.

[alexandertnt]

I think Early Access is treated a little harshly sometimes. It can take many years to develop a game, and some people just seem annoyed that the game doesn't suddenly come into existance right now.

Although there are bad developers and exercising caution is always good.

[Neonivek]

I think Early Access is treated a little harshly sometimes. It can take many years to develop a game, and some people just seem annoyed that the game doesn't suddenly come into existance right now.

Although there are bad developers and exercising caution is always good.

Early Access is bad when it is just a company, who has the money, trying to skimp off money for an unfinished product.

For other games I can fully understand why it happens and honestly as bad as it is... I prefer this whole kickstarter + Early Access junk 100 times more then just relying on the vast majority of games being made by big name publishers now a days (DANG! what has happened to the world where there isn't ONE... not ONE game company making games I love anymore?)

There is just so little risk taking... I know most indie games are the same deal (Retro Platformers/beatemups AHOY!) but at least I have some hope for new IPs.

It is why I forgive the fact that most "pay before it is made" games are duds and won't go anywhere, or are lack luster... Because it isn't like the big developer games are really pushing that envelope for me (where they just feel like expensive crud...)

[Darkmere]

I think Early Access is treated a little harshly sometimes. It can take many years to develop a game, and some people just seem annoyed that the game doesn't suddenly come into existance right now.

Although there are bad developers and exercising caution is always good.

It's not so much a length of time as it is complete and utter flops or abandonment issues. There's a big difference between something like Starbound (where updates feel glacial, though I know the reasons why this is due to devs staying involved with the community and am not too upset over it) and Starforge (which has basically gone dark and looks like nothing at all is being done as far as I can tell).

Toady does the future of the fortress updates, so although progress is slow, we know there IS progress and it's delivered at a minimum of dev time at reasonable intervals. I'm okay with that. The other system? Not as much.

Re: Consoles, I'd never thought of it in those terms but that's exactly why the most recent console I own is a PS2 I got on clearance right before the PS3's came out. I don't have any interest in buying into the new generation of stuff, especially when the companies have a vested interest in planned obsolescence to keep me shelling out $50 for whatever new games are now. Pass, especially when I can get entertainment cheaper via Steam with more reasonable expectations of longevity. And failing that, there's always gog.com with no DRM at all, where the service is just a provider with few strings attached.

[Neonivek]

The worst part is that history tells us that if the community complains about the lack of updates, that the development team tends to turn against the complainers.

Heck there is another game I can think of, not giving names because I don't want to blacklist anyone but lets say it was 15 dollars down the drain, where if you even mention the long or absent update time (and goodness have they gotten TERRIBLE at it... they have started to give "non-updates" to hide the fact that they aren't actively working on the game now) they will delete your post or even ban you from the website.

If you make a topic of criticism, they will delete the topic.

I would LOVE Games as a Service to fail... but the problem is the reason why game developers can get away with everything is because they are not after YOUR wallet informed consumer with standards and tastes. They are after the portion of the casual market with no impulse control, no informed opinion, and very little developed taste.

Which is the thing... I don't dislike casual or impulse gamers. I dislike the fact that the market caters exclusively to them and the fact that they will buy into things "we" have learned better of, a long time ago.

Which is what I don't like about this situation. "We" don't matter because we aren't the people funding this stupidity machine... and don't get me wrong I am not "above this all" I still have The Sims 3 and expansions that were the biggest series of disappointments of my life... but I got over it and The Sims 4 couldn't be anymore suspicious now.

[alexandertnt]

I agree that companies are trying to undermine our rational decision making, but they do it to so-called "core" gamers as well. e.g. By making old-school RPG's or nintendo hard platformers and advertiseing them as such even if they are not actually very good games.

[Neonivek]

I agree that companies are trying to undermine our rational decision making, but they do it to so-called "core" gamers as well. e.g. By making old-school RPG's or nintendo hard platformers and advertiseing them as such even if they are not actually very good games.

Ohh yeah for sure.

We just aren't their primary targets.

[Darkmere]

I agree that companies are trying to undermine our rational decision making, but they do it to so-called "core" gamers as well. e.g. By making old-school RPG's or nintendo hard platformers and advertiseing them as such even if they are not actually very good games.

I'm confused by this... Shitty games aren't new (E.T. for Atari 2600, Daikatana, BC3k, etc.) so you feel targeted just because the shitty games now are in genres this forum tends to like? Or did I misread that?

[Shadowlord]

This seems relevant to the side-topic about Nintendo Hard games: Extra Credits: When Difficult Is Fun (7m43s long).

(Extra Credits is pretty good.)