Icon says it all. There are no words.
Oh please, PLEASE bring back Xbox One's hated DRM - say Xbox loyalists
Xbox One loyalists want Microsoft to reinstate the new console's tough copy protection controls and mandatory online connection requirement that were axed following a backlash. Thousands of gamers have put their names to a petition piling pressure on Redmond to give them the Xbox One console it promised at gaming conference E3 …
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Thursday 11th July 2013 17:43 GMT Prowler
There are no words.
Somehow this does not surprise me, I mean we know there is a large cache of humans that are forever chasing the Bell curve, they exist by definition as sure as those others riding atop and leading it..
It's possible, perhaps even likely that Redmond is secretly administering a large scale IQ test to the citizens of the world, maybe as a hyper-advanced marketing technique where they will ultimately sell the user information of those 8,000 DRM demanders to the highest bidder, because they would certainly be among the most desirable demographic imaginable.
I looked for a good Icon avatar to express my opinion but sadly there is none that suffice. Even the facepalm cannot do this story appropriate justice.
Here is my suggestion for a new avatar for these numerous Microsoft stories ...
http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/9229/rwj.gif
... Head banging against wall.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 22:34 GMT Daniel B.
hahaha
I'm split. One part of me wants this to be heard, because a DRM-riddled XBoxOne will sink faster than the HMS Victoria. On the other side, it sets a bad precedent in the gaming industry, something for which the consumer should have zero tolerance. The fact that 8000 people are asking to get reamed with this awful scheme proves that at least someone will buy into such an awful scheme.
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Friday 12th July 2013 02:46 GMT Steven Roper
These people must be the same astroturfing fuckwads that skewed the survey indicating most Americans turned against Snowden for revealing PRISM. I'm normally against the death penalty, but there are those who sometimes convince me that the human gene pool might occasionally need chlorinating.
The other thing that shits me is this: It'll only take 8,000 signatures to get Microsoft to put back the DRM, while it took 8,000,000 signatures to get them to stop it. This is why I feel such hatred for these arseholes that support reduction of freedom - because of this social mechanism whereby it only takes one screaming fool to cause a company (or a government) to ratchet the wheel of oppression one more notch.
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Friday 12th July 2013 09:04 GMT Homer 1
Template Letter of Support
Dear Mr. Sweaty Ballmer,
As loyal (albeit entirely fictional) supporter of Microsoft, I hereby petition you to reinstate me as a slave immediately, contrary to the heinous wishes of that nasty majority who refuse to prostitute themselves as Microsoft shills.
Yours with love, affection and an invoice for payment,
[INSERT NAME]
--
NB: See also Microsoft's Letters From The Dead.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 13:57 GMT Tom 260
Re: "...consumers were uninformed..."
Yup, I think people were pretty well informed regarding the limit of trading a game once, ever, and only to selected stores.
The demand for the family sharing bit is understandable, but I would think there'd be some limitations, such as only 1 or 2 can play the game at any one time - throw in the download time for the game and it'd be quicker to borrow someone's disc.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 15:10 GMT Si 1
Re: "...consumers were uninformed..."
It wasn't confirmed by Microsoft but it is generally thought that the family share feature would only allow friends or family to play an hour or so of a shared game before being asked to pay full price for their own copy.
Quite why these people want that feature back I don't know.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 15:14 GMT Test Man
Re: "...consumers were uninformed..."
No, it wasn't confirmed by Microsoft. It was completely rubbished by Microsoft (http://winsupersite.com/xbox/xbox-one-preview-what-really-happened-family-sharing). The "generally thought" bit was a load of crappy tech sites regurgitating the rubbish that was pasted on Pastebin - hardly a bastion of truth.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 14:00 GMT M Gale
And of the 5 last comments on the petition...
...0 out of 5 of them were serious, at of the time of writing.
Methinks this chap is going to have fun reading through thousands of sarcastic comments calling him a twat. My pick of the front page has to be a paragraph by "Fuckfaic McGee", Australia:
I love restrictions. I want always online DRM. I want the game rental business to become obsolete. I don't want to let my friends borrow games, because fuck them. All I care about is my god damn new age console that'll blow everything else out of the water! Fuck the PS4 and fuck those Sony guys for catering to fans who care about their gaming experience. Fuck PC, that shit is stupid. Steam? Fuck that shit. They never have sales or anything. It's not as affordable as buying my games from the XBL marketplace. I love Microsoft and their business practices will be the best forever. Fuck yes. <3 Xbox.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 14:03 GMT wowfood
I agree wholeheartedly
DRM can only be a good thing. Look at Ubisoft, look at EA, look how amazingly their DRM turned out. We need that kind of high quality DRM on the xbox also.
Lets face it, game companies are implementing their own DRM anyway, whether it be in a form of actual DRM (EA and origin) or DRM as in "buy our game and get this free DLC whcih is basically half the game.... FUCK YOU SECOND HAND MARKET!!!"
I'd actually like to point out, I agree with the 'fuck the second hand market' stateent. Especiall here in the UK.
Buy a game for £40, next day trade it in because it was so damn short. Get £10 back, go in the next day, my game is on sale for £38. £2 less than retail.
You don't see a used car going on sale for 5% less than the new model, so why is it that way with games? Especially when a lot of games these days you're losing out on the 'free' DLC.
I also kind of think Microsoft was a little childish about the whole matter. "Okay we'll remove the DRM you hate... But we're also removing all the good bits you wanted like sharing stuff over the webz because we didn't get what we want, you don't get what you want."
Which has kind've shot them in the foot since now Sony are delivering the content Microsoft removed (pretty much) without the DRM restriction Microsoft said they needed to make it happen.
http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/ps4-users-will-be-able-to-access-game-library-from-any-console-1165098
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Thursday 11th July 2013 14:51 GMT SteveK
Re: I agree wholeheartedly
"You don't see a used car going on sale for 5% less than the new model, so why is it that way with games? Especially when a lot of games these days you're losing out on the 'free' DLC."
Agree. Plus the annoyance that you often also lose the DLC if you buy it once it's 6 months old or so. Had that the other month with Assassins Creed .. err .. 57? DLC code expires on this date regardless of whether you bought new, but are we putting the price down to compensate? I think not.
Same with DVDs/BR disks with double/triple-play 'download' options. Again, this usually vanishes a few months after release but is still touted on the box as being provided.
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Friday 12th July 2013 09:01 GMT Matt_payne666
Re: I agree wholeheartedly - used cars
Have you seen the second hand price for a genuine, low mileage release date car? after a month or two it will still be sold for close to retail...
When I was after a demo Evoque just after release I was still looking at full price....
DRM is a necessary evil, but there are some of us that are casual gamers... ive a nice collection of used PS3 games - with a job, wife and kids I get exactly 2 evenings a month to play games - which is when a bunch of mates in a similar position rotate round hosting a boys night... its just not worth paying £50 for a game with such limited use!
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Friday 12th July 2013 13:56 GMT Tom 38
Re: I agree wholeheartedly - used cars
Have you seen the second hand price for a genuine, low mileage release date car?
Please get a clue, when the new cars can't be sold as new, they get 10 miles put on the clock for 'delivery' and are sold as second hand through partner garages for ~60% of price. This is for actual new cars, not really 2nd hand games.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 15:18 GMT GregC
Re: I agree wholeheartedly
I'd actually like to point out, I agree with the 'fuck the second hand market' stateent. Especiall here in the UK.
No, I don't agree with "fuck the second hand market". "Fuck the rip off retailer second hand market", on the other hand, absolutely - this :
Buy a game for £40, next day trade it in because it was so damn short. Get £10 back, go in the next day, my game is on sale for £38. £2 less than retail.
This, I agree, is ridiculous. But we, the consumers, are partially to blame for allowing, indeed encouraging, it. If you want to sell a game then do it direct - on ebay, in a shop window (remember those days....) whatever. That way you might get £25 instead of a tenner, and the second hand buyer doesn't get ripped off either.
And if the game studios and publishers want to discourage the second hand market, they could try making the games worth keeping hold of. Make it good enough that I don't want to sell it, and guess what - I won't sell it. There's a fair few games that I haven't sold, because I still go back to them. There's a lot more that got sold because they had no replay value.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 16:31 GMT RAMChYLD
Re: I agree wholeheartedly
So you're saying that we in Malaysia don't deserve to own an Xbox One?
Malaysia is not one of the 21 countries that will receive the Xbox One, and thus the console will not operate after it does an IP check and determines that I'm not using an ISP from one of the 21 countries on launch. Even after the console launches after the planned Asia launch date of sometime in 2014 (apparently MS anticipates high demand of the console in the UK, Europe, US, Aussieland and Kiwiland on launch that Asia can wait until 2014 as to allow everyone in those regions to get their consoles and gloat at friends stuck in Asia first, and even after the fact Malaysia will get a pared down launch with many services disabled two whole years after Singapore (seriously, we just got Xbox Live a few months ago. Singapore has had it for years, and even then we still can't play online because a gold subscription isn't available in Malaysia).
Tell you what MS, you put the stupid DRM back, and I assure you I will only get a PS4 and overlook your Xbox One. Since We have had PSN long before you launched XBL, and we already have PS+ while you're still not launching XBL Gold. You do want my money, do you? My shiny Malaysian Ringgits? Sure, it's crap since Singaporean dollars are shinier and bigger, but think about it! Extra moolah! You want it? THEN DON'T PUT THE STUPID DRM BACK. OR AT VERY LEAST OMIT THE REGION LOCKING $H!*
My original plan is to buy both. But if the DRM comes back, Xbox One can kiss my ass again.
Region locking. I'm sick of this shit. Between not being able to watch Hulu or Netflix, having a more limited iTunes store catalog, not being able to buy downloadable games for my 3DS (and needing to carry around a large pouch of cartridges which costs three times as much as they do in the US), and being blocked from buying many apps and videos EVEN FROM THE LEAPFROG APP CENTER- YES, EVEN A KIDDIE APP STORE HAS STUPID REGION LOCKING (it wasn't there before, but was put in recently. Overnight my method of watching shows I could no longer get in Malaysia because of the anal censorship board and religious bodies (this is why religion and politics mixing is a bad idea people!) became an expensive paperweight.
I'm sick of this.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 14:03 GMT Nick Ryan
MS' XBOX One plans would have worked and worked quite well and been reasonably fair... but only if the games were released at a reasonable prince taking into account the restrictions. In my mind that would have been 20% or so of the current sales prices of console games.
However we all know that this would never happen, particularly with the studios carefully telling us how many 10's of millions of $ it takes to make a current hit clone / sequel / cut-scene-delivery-mechanism. There is also the problem that the console hardware is usually loss-leading and the recovery is made in the sales price of the games.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 15:19 GMT Greg J Preece
A solid percentage of the moans would have evaporated if the announcement of the XBO was identical in every way but with "..games will now only be £24.99 as a result of these changes"
Ahahahahahahahaha, no. Which Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft are you thinking of? Last I checked, games on the online console stores were usually way more expensive at launch, not cheaper. Far Cry and FIFA were 60 quid at launch, and 35-45 in the stores.
If you honestly think they would have reduced prices like that, when you would have no other way of sourcing the games, you're naive.
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Friday 12th July 2013 07:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Well I cleary don't expect it.Just said it's what they should have done.
If we're to accept games will be either worth less second hard, untradeable or needing some sort of extra payment (ie devs,MS get a cut with each sale) then almost every argument people have/had against it would have gone if they initial purchase price was dropped.
Not Naive, simply suggesting a simple, and fairly obvious way MS could have won this particular battle.
I've no dog in this race. I own both current offerings and will probably end up with both of the new ones too. Just a matter of which first. Like last time.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 14:56 GMT Steve Knox
Re: Cannot see replies to petition
My inner cynic thinks they were working for Microsoft.
No, seriously. I find it hard to believe Microsoft have the capability to make all of the changes involved in turning off their DRM system in a reasonable timeframe.
I wouldn't put it past them to engineer this petition as a way of weaseling out of a promise they couldn't keep.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 14:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Missing the point for the sake of a story...
The point is people complained about enforcing DRM on bought and paid-for disks, preventing them being traded second-hand without Microsoft taking a cut.
The idea of being able to trade DRM-controlled downloads was fairly novel (for the industry) and fairly welcome.
Microsoft, presumably having tied both so tightly together in their implementation they became inseparable, withdrew both features, thus screwing customers on one hand whilst captiulating on the other. The thought of which makes me want to wash my hands of the whole affair.
But fuck common sense, this is the console industry...
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Thursday 11th July 2013 14:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
THANK YOU MISTRESS! MAY I HAVE ANOTHER?
I say we all chip in and buy these people the, ahem, gaming attire they seem to be in need of (see icon) - after all, they won't have any money after buying all those high-priced games they won't be able to resell.
(unless, of course, they choose to spend the checks they are getting from Microsoft's
Bribery and ExtortionMarketing and Sales group - but that's just being unreasonable now, isn't it.) -
Thursday 11th July 2013 15:03 GMT King Jack
Fools and their liberty...
Some people genuinely want the DRM. I read some guy praising paying for XBL as it keeps the riff-raff out. The same person seemed to think that going round a mates house with a disk is too much effort and would prefer to fill up the tiny (500mb) disk with a download of his game. As if downloads are instant?
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Thursday 11th July 2013 17:16 GMT Annihilator
Already exists
I can see MS's direction, it just went massively far.
Sony are being a bit disingenuous in that they already operate the Playstation Store which gives you a single locked down version of a game, without any rights to trade or even give away to a friend. How about MS launched a version of this that allowed trading and gifting, but allowed the DRM token to remain the disc where applicable? Best of both worlds!
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Thursday 11th July 2013 22:45 GMT Daniel B.
Re: Already exists
Both companies already sell digital copy games on the current gen consoles: PS3 and XB360. Both have the non-transferable licenses, but at least you know what you're getting when you buy the online games.
XBone was forcing gamers to only have the stupid digital scheme. We already have the best of both worlds!
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Friday 12th July 2013 11:14 GMT Annihilator
Re: Already exists
Erm, no, the best of both worlds is transferable digital copies while retaining physical copies to give the user the *choice*. Right now I wouldn't buy a digital download as I can't sell it on.
There was nothing to stop MS just re-introducing disc-only versions on top of the digital market place that they were suggesting. Instead they've thrown their toys out of the pram!
In short, this petition would be better approached by asking "can we get digital trading on the existing solution please"
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Friday 12th July 2013 09:05 GMT MJI
No problem here - no really exciting XB exclusives
Not many XB exclusives I actually want, but this generation ME came, Bioshock came, and latest Bioshock Infinite PS3 is great (Move support).
Now the one XB series I have wanted to try, the publishers have gone multiplatform, so I will get Destiny, on PS4.
First games will be Watch Dogs, Destiny, KZ Shadow Fall, Order 1886. Now how can that go wrong?
And we only went PS3 since we had a PS2
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Thursday 11th July 2013 23:41 GMT Paul 87
I agree with part of the petition's sentiment, allow console owners the same market that Steam provides, with both the direct delivery and deep discounts that digital distribution allow, at the expense of not having a physical disc to trade or sell on.
The major flaw was that this was seen as mutually exclusive, so they could only support one or the other and not both. I suspect that many publishers would be happy to keep the funds flowing long after it becomes viable to produce more discs, and if you set it up so that the physical disc represented "first dibs", you can keep the bricks and mortar retails somewhere content to allow speedy gamers the ability to trade in when needed.
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Thursday 11th July 2013 23:51 GMT L05ER
uninformed is right...
this wasn't even really a microsoft centric move... they were giving devs and publishers control of their content. giving them the ability to choose whether to allow trade-ins, rentals, etc...
i loved the announcement. i hate gamestop and their ilk... middlemen with no interest in the sector other than money. they have driven local shops out of business, and now abuse their power to the the detriment of the producers and consumers.
since the industry relies on these parasites at this point... the producers were forced into anti-consumer tactics like online passes and restricting content ("DLC" unlocks) to help fight against that clerk pushing the used version over the 10 brand new copies they have in stock. it would also be nice to not have to hear the clerk complain about the very anti-consumer tactics the industry instituted to fight them.
ultimately consumers are to blame for ruining gaming for gamers... if gamers purchased ethically, and ponied up that extra $2-$5, knowing they were actually supporting EVERYONE that made it possible and not just the parasites.... we'd see no DRM (involving physical media) and no season passes...
i'll admit it made no difference to me... i buy new, i don't buy every game that comes out, and i don't sell my games. i was more glad to see someone trying to make a stand, and it's a shame more don't see it this way...
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Friday 12th July 2013 07:30 GMT Danny 5
Insane
We already have a system that's ready for both, it's on the 360 right now. You can buy most games digitally from the marketplace, all they need to do is implement a trading/reselling system in there and they're done.
Are these people insane? Nobody in their right mind is in favor of DRM and i am truely amazed to see people happily throwing away their right of ownership.
You know what, fuck this, If DRM is back, then i'm out. I'm already going to wait and see what happens and not get a new console early on.
I also can't stand their high and mighty attitude about people being misinformed. Just because they think it's the next best thing since sliced toast doesn't mean it's the best thing for everyone. These closed systems are only good for one thing, hiking prices for big gaming companies. The only games that might become cheaper are the indie games and those DEV's aren't making much money as it is.
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Friday 12th July 2013 08:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
He's not wrong - it should be bought back...
...and we could all enjoy DRM in the physical sense too.
Can we not have a pair of electrodes for our nipples? They could plug into the controller, and issue shocks when using the dashboard in any way that is not compliant with the intended 'experience'.
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Friday 12th July 2013 09:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
Oh boy
The real fun here is that this is all moot. Microsoft was laying the foundations of a system that controlled how and when a user played and traded their games. The people that would decide what you could do would be the publishers. M$ has said this. It doesn't matter if the system allowed for trades, family share, second hand sales, the publishers could turn it all off on a title by title basis!
Remember the guy that got banned from his EA master account? He posted a slightly derogatory comment about EA on a forum and got his ability to play all his EA games banned. Do you really want to give someone the power to strip you of all your console games? Steam accounts have been hacked and entire libraries lost!
It doesn't matter what they say, you have far more flexibility with a disk based copy protection system than you ever do with a DRM solution. DRM is about control and limiting what the players can do with their own software. Steam became beloved by gamers as it changed the DRM model already present in PC games from locking the game to a PC to locking the games to a player. Gamers would stick a new graphics card on and find none of their games worked. Steam was an improvement but to an already broken system.
Publishers want money, no matter if they earn it by producing good games or not.The DRM model would mean that anyone wanting to play the latest film licence game with 4 hours gameplay would have to buy it at retail prices. Short games that have little innovation, mass appeal and quick development cycles are the most profitable. Do you really think destroying the second hand market and game rentals will improve games? How many times have you watched/read a games review only to hear "It's not bad, worth a rental"?
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Friday 12th July 2013 11:15 GMT KroSha
Gouging
The publishers are having a larf! MS and Sony both want total control of the games market and to move us all to tied licenses. But they also want to keep gouging us for £30+ per game, which just isn't realistic.
I saw a talk by one of the founders of Oddworld Inhabitants, inventors of the extremely lovable Abe. It’s very illuminating; both in the way that this small developer chooses to work, and for a telling fact. When they shipped boxed product, a game that retailed at $60 would pay a royalty of $7. The rest went on manufacturing costs and licensing and other sundries. Now, distributing their titles via PSN, Steam and XBLA, a sale of $10 nets the same $7 royalty. And this is for games that cost $4m to produce!
The full talk is here: http://www.oddworld.com/2012/10/oddworld-does-eurogamer-expo/
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Saturday 13th July 2013 09:12 GMT Tony Paulazzo
Steam Vs Xbone (as was)
Steam allows you to burn all your bought games to disk, Steam allows offline play, Steam has sales of up to 95%, Steam has promised [citation needed] that if their servers go dark to rid the DRM off all purchased games.
Microsoft: No backups, no offline play, paltry sales, when their servers go dark so does your console - oh, but 10 'family' [I'm assuming 'live'] members can play demoes of any game in your library.
Doh! Please sir, may I have another. In other news - Fire sale of the Surface RT.
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Monday 15th July 2013 08:43 GMT MJI
Being gamer friendly is good business sense
Make it easy to play a game, make it easy to buy and sell, and people will buy you console. Make it diffcult and people will check the competition.
Sony showed really good sense with the PS4, They interviewed the developers, they investigated architectures, they have gone into the next generation with thoughts of the PS1 and PS2 eras.
One final thing, console dominance does not matter as much as you think, because there will be a huge number of games to play - remember PS2 era?