Well with the new potential requirement Google plans to implement that will require all apps on Googles android devices to be verified and distributed by their system, it may be time to leave Appl- I mean Google all together.
The days of an open android and a non-evil google are almost completely gone.
I would argue that AAA full priced gaming space is not where that innovation has been happening in recent years, it has mostly been with lower priced indies.
The value of a game’s Quantity is directly proportionate to its Quality though, starfield and its 1000s of repetitive planets are the perfect example of this. Would any halo fan rather play 20 hours of infinite or 20 hours of halo 2…?
Yes there have been outliers of increased quality and quantity over the last decade, but in the full priced AAA space nowadays, that is the exception not the rule.
Yes both very subjective. Accessibility and streamlining gameplay has seemed to be the focus. Developing unique, novel but also enjoyable new gameplay experiences? (the reason i believe most people game) That more or less ended with the Wii, Ps3 and 360 era of consoles.
The quality of games did not improve, in fact game quality and diversity has deteriorated. The quantity of content has dropped off as well. Graphics fidelity and production costs have skyrocketed though.
Graphics are so superficial when it comes to games anyhow, why would anyone pay more for a pretty waste of time?
Edit: i am talking about AAA games here, obv there has been an extreme proliferation of indie titles
This is what no consumer protections on digital products looks like.
Its ok, we are just rolling over and taking it. Why own things when we could pay more to rent?
Great point here.
Yeah this is just a defence of deep-rooted anti-consumer practices thats generalizing the issue.
There are multiple types of online-dependent games, so i will do the world a favor and categorize them here, along with viable solutions to prevent their current inevitable unplayability(sticking to PC games for simplicity):
-The dev baked in this online requirement solely to prevent piracy. There is no necessary data being exchanged with a server in order for the game to continuously operate, other than the anti-piracy measures. This means that all a developer needs to do is patch the launcher/game files to not require the online connection, and the game will work fine. Some examples of this anti-piracy software are Denuvo, or Games for Windows Live. In the case of GFWL, anyone who owned a game that required that software to play, can no longer do so as the service has shut down. When denuvo shuts down their servers, those games will be unplayable also.
The solution so far has been to pirate. The community has made their own patches, simple or not, to continue to play games without unnecessary server dependence. This effort should be on the developers.
-Examples -DRM: —GTA V -rockstar game launcher —Diablo 2 Resurrected -Blizzard launcher —Resident Evil 4 Remake -Denuvo —Gears of War(2009 PC) -GFWL (now unplayable without modifying software) —Chronicles of Riddick, AoDA -TAGES (now unplayable without modifying software)
-Most of these games have no option to host a local server, and playing matches alone, split screen or with a friend on your network requires connection to an online server. This has been an intentional design choice for the passed decade or so. Multiplayer games used to come with local or private server hosting baked in, which required no dev-hosted online server connection to continue playing indefinitely.
The solution is more locally/privately host-able servers for multiplayer games. This needs to become the norm again, and has to be implemented as a choice by developers. These games dont need to be redesigned from the ground up for this to work usually either
-Examples -server type: —Halo CE -private/lan servers 👍 —Halo MCC -Dedicated servers, lan requires online connection 👎 —Battlefield 3,4,1,5,2042 -dedicated servers, bf3 was just sunset 👎 —Battlefield 2/1942/Vietnam -Lan AND bots in servers offline 👍 —Call of Duty’s -up until MW2019 they all had robust offline modes that allowed offline lan play, many had bots and zombies modes too 👍 but MW2019 and after have such egregious Blizzard DRM and the game content is an absolute mess, even pirates have a hard time cracking them 👎 —Quake 1-3, CS 1.6/Source, Unreal Tournaments - the quintessential multiplayer format with private lan servers, these came out in the golden era of multiplayer games 👍
-This category clumps in MMO, Service, PvP and PvE games together. Data must be passed between players and servers in order for the game to operate properly. Again, this is merely a design choice and not the only way that game could ever be developed in many scenarios, but there are games whose data/processing cannot be hosted locally because of their complexity, such as some MMO’s. This server dependence is prevalent in Service games today because the servers tell the account/game what items they have purchased with real money, all of that is tracked and regulated by the developers in order to, you guessed it, continue to make more money.
There are 2 solutions here… Either design the game so it can also be played without server dependence from the beginning(which in many cases is entirely feasable, but devs prefer you to be always connected to their store to be able to buy more microtransactions)… Or when the game is not financially viable to justify server upkeep, a version of the game or server is released to the public. Yes yes devs dont want to give out their source code and this option requires the most development time, but it prevents people who paid for/into a game from loosing access to it forever.
-Examples -Fixes: —Shatterline -singleplayer version released on steam after online service was sunset 👍 (not free) —Spellbreak -devs released files so players could run their own server once their servers were closed 👍 (free) —World of Warcraft -they would have to do the same as spellbreak, if this game ever shuts down —Anthem -sunset happening in a month or so, no plan to make playable offline/without EA servers, needs dev time👎 —Battleborn -servers taken offline after 4.5 years and i have missed it ever since, needed dev time to work offline 👎 —The Crew -sparked the Stop Killing Games movement with its end, Ubisoft has no plans for an offline patch 👎 (although they do with The Crew 2 👍)
It is important to remember that most(almost all) PC games today bought via Steam, Epic, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Rockstar or EA stores all require an online account to be able to play the games youve bought there, whether or not the games are then playable offline after purchase. Those games are dependent on those online stores in order to access those games if you alter your hardware or software and need to redownload those games, you will need to go through those launcher’s DRM. Some of those launchers won’t let games launch offline ever, as i mentioned in section 1.
GOG and a few DRM free Steam games are some of the only ways to purchase games that have no online dependence once downloaded.
The takeaway here is that many online-only requirements function at best as a means to preserve a distributor’s bottom line and at worst as a form of planned obsolescence that eventually takes away a good you paid for, leaving you with the option of buying the remake, sequel, or another game entirely(like the devs/publishers want).
Here’s to hoping the EU is going to take consumer interests seriously and impose some new rules around game preservation on these money focused companies.
I guess herein lies the potential fallacy of my statement. Decreased desire is a Subjective observation.
One cannot draw a direct correlation, but there is data to conclude that not having a piracy option will boost sales of data initially, at least when it comes to games. (Hence why publishers continue to use Denuvo)
Disclosure: I have been sailing the seas for years, but…
This logic does no justice to the objective financial harm being done to the creators/owners of valuable data/content/media.
The original creator/owner is at a loss when data is copied. The intent of that data is to be copied for profit. Now that the data has been copied against the creator/owners will, they do not receive the profit from that copy.
Yes yes the argument is made that the pirate would not have bought the copy anyways, but having free copies of the content available on the internet decreases the desire for people to obtain paid copies of the data. At the very least it gives people an option not to pay for the data, which is not what the creator wanted in creating it. They are entitled to fair compensation to their work.
It is true that pirating is not directly theft, but it does definitely take away from the creator’s/distributor’s profit.
If there is over a 50% chance the device will not do what it is supposed to do (play your game) then nobody will want to use that device. We are just arguing over semantics here. I hope you see this as a not good thing for nintendo to do… “Samus”
Yes most 1st party published games are on the cartridge yes, but the majority of the library is/will be 3rd party…
So being generous this is a “majority brick”
When a switch 2 cannot reach online services, all your physical 3rd party “Game Keycards” become useless to you, as they require the game to be downloaded from nintendo online services.
This is a brick
Yes, in order to download your “Game Keycard” games, you must get the game data from nintendo online services. This is why banning online services is considered effectively bricking the console, at least for all 3rd party games on keycards.
If an account is banned, another one can be made for free and the user can keep utilizing their online services… Nintendo obviously looks at that like a burden, and wants to financially punish that user, making them have to buy another switch. This in turn benefits them.
Not that this is what youre looking for, but Olauncher has done a great job of keeping me from being too distracted by my phone. All apps are in a text list, no colorful icons or red dots to grab your attention when they shouldnt.
Its surprisingly intuitive to use too.
The comparison is more akin to how they have actually restored the mona lisa with chemical and color correction as a means to make it withstand the test of time. Thats essentially what has happened with the remastered version of this game.
I understand that in other instances, remasters and remakes might as well be a different game, but if you have played crysis, this is barely the case.
Im not saying its fine to lose access to original data. All im saying is in this particular case, there isnt much loss to be outraged about. The publishers havent un-alived the IP. We have just lost access to some historical data.
I am all for preservation. I dont want to underplay the detriments of lost data. I just want to subjectively quantify this loss.
If there was no alternative, and debatably superior, version of the game currently available then this might be an issue. But there is, so the preservation of the IP is hardly jeopardized.
It matters if you value it less as a collectible and more as a preserved, playable copy.
The space combat is sufficient, how about we get a procedural world rework that gives meaning to exploration in the game?!