We're not always online; games shouldn't be either

March 15th, 2013, 23:41 Posted By: wraggster

Companies promoting always-online need to understand the real world, says Rob Fahey
[h=3]EA[/h]

"Defective by design". That's how opponents of strong DRM characterise the object of their ire; software systems which are deliberately created to restrict, undermine and generally break the functionality of the content to which they parasitically cling. DRM, at this extreme, is a direct assault on the rights of the consumer - rights which had been enshrined both in law and in common practice in the pre-digital age, but which are now subject to a land-grab by the grim-faced lawyers of media companies the world over.
Games, for all our occasional harping and moaning on this subject, have been fairly tame and sensible in their implementation of DRM for the most part. It probably helps that many senior figures in the games business are pretty technologically competent compared to their counterparts in music and film; it's hard to imagine games companies continuing to pour money into a ludicrous, abortive, hugely expensive abomination like the film industry's bewilderingly beloved Ultraviolet system, simply because for all their flaws, games companies are quite good at understanding and accepting when a technology has simply failed.
In games, a handful of "tough" DRM concepts have flared up briefly before being extinguished - either the technology didn't actually work, rendering it pointless, or the restrictions it imposed on legitimate consumers were so onerous that DRM actually ended up damaging the commercial potential of the game and its sequels. Again, credit where it's due - even those in the games industry who are most ideologically inclined towards DRM based solutions to piracy have generally been quick to accept facts ("this isn't working" or "this is screwing over our paying customers") and back down in such cases. Indeed, no matter what your view may be on microtransactions, paymium and F2P - and I maintain that we're going to have some very very tough years in the core gaming space as companies and designers repeatedly fail to apply microtransaction models sensibly for core consumers - it's still a great big gold star in gaming's copybook that the industry has actually gone out and thought about what a post-digital business model might look like, rather than just going crying to governments about how big nasty technology has come along and stolen everyone's lunch money with its "innovation" and its "progress".
"In games, a handful of "tough" DRM concepts have flared up briefly before being extinguished"

There is, however, one daft approach which the biggest and most generally sensible of games creators don't seem to be quite able to shake off. Creating always-online games - shoving a client-server model borrowed from MMORPGs and other multiplayer titles into the heart of your singleplayer games - seems to hold a siren call for developers, in spite of high-profile and humiliating failures. When Blizzard did it with Diablo 3, it was met with resistance and anger from players that unquestionably coloured the critical and commercial reaction to the game - now seen as a distinct low point for a company which could do almost no wrong for the previous 15 years or so. Now EA has stepped up to implement similar ideas in the new Sim City, in the process fomenting a backlash that has almost entirely eclipsed years of superb build-up and excitement around the resurrection of this beloved franchise.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ldnt-be-either

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