121–130 of 211 posts
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They just got bought by Microsoft for almost 70 Billion dollars.
Apparently the execs at Microsoft don't read Hacker News.
I know folks on this site don't like it, but in the wider gaming community, there is essentially no demand among legitimate buyers for an always offline gaming option. We have access to the internet almost no matter where we are, or can easily get it. Why should we care if a game needs to check in periodically? What harm is it likely to do to any given legitimate buyer? It's almost certainly worth it to Blizzard to l…
Blizzard is long dead. Such a shame. I’ll never pay for another of their games until… actually I’m not sure when, or what they could do to bring me back. They’ve poisoned their brand so completely, and their latest releases have been either somewhat mediocre or mismanaged into the ground over time.
They just got bought by Microsoft for almost 70 Billion dollars.
What a crazy industry.
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When Rocket League, a game I never played, ditched support for macOS I asked for a refund. I described how I disliked that they removed support for macOS. I wouldn't play Rocket League on my MBP, mind you, but I do have Steam installed on it. I got a refund, no questions asked (though I did buy it on sale, judging by the amount I got refunded). Steam doesn't need DRM to figure out how long a game is being played, btw…
"Steam tracks that without DRM" Steam is DRM
At this point I'm just not buying anything by the dumpster fire that used to be Blizzard.
Most of us don't care and we just want to play vidya games.
Blizzard is long dead. Such a shame. I’ll never pay for another of their games until… actually I’m not sure when, or what they could do to bring me back. They’ve poisoned their brand so completely, and their latest releases have been either somewhat mediocre or mismanaged into the ground over time.
I don't like the game but they are just a hand full of years off from creating a huge success in Overwatch
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When Rocket League, a game I never played, ditched support for macOS I asked for a refund. I described how I disliked that they removed support for macOS. I wouldn't play Rocket League on my MBP, mind you, but I do have Steam installed on it. I got a refund, no questions asked (though I did buy it on sale, judging by the amount I got refunded). Steam doesn't need DRM to figure out how long a game is being played, btw…
> Steam tracks that without DRM, too. Yes and no. They can track play time when you launch a game through the Steam client, and they can use DRM to enforce launching games through the Steam client. If you launch one of the few DRM-Free Steam games without using Steam, your play time won’t increase. GOG also tracks play time if you launch a game via GOG Galaxy. The difference is, every single-player game in their cata…
From my (admittedly limited) experience with GOG games and Galaxy, only games downloaded via the GOG website (with 'offline backup game installers') can be launched without Galaxy; games installed with Galaxy will force Galaxy to be running alongside it
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It's pretty rough for historians, archivists, and curators too. Can you imagine if books became unreadable twenty years after publication because >99.9% of readers will have moved on from the book by that point? Or if every painting, sculpture, photograph, or musical recording self-destructed in the same time period? At this point I think it's fair to say that games are cultural artifacts. We should be at least a tok…
I suppose. I can't say that the interests of these groups are particularly close to my heart. Certainly if I was a game dev I wouldn't be willing to pass up a chance to substantially increase revenue to make life easier for an archivist. To the extent that there is any value in the history of this game, I think most of it will be sufficiently captured in the large amount of video content being produced about it.
Indeed, DRM historically isn't noted for actually boosting revenue. Perhaps we are discussing a false belief here, similar to people who claim that end-to-end encryption enables drugs/guns/CSAM/money laundering. Both feel true and seem obviously true, but lots of truth-y and obvious things are false upon close examination. This does not diminish the sincerity of anyone's belief, only its factual basis.
It may also be worth considering that videos about games as a substitute for the actual artifacts might be like keeping reviews of plays instead of preserving the text. Useful and important cultural artifacts and context, but perhaps not the same as having the originals. Video game museums exist today, and I found it fascinating to be able to play games from decades past.
I know folks on this site don't like it, but in the wider gaming community, there is essentially no demand among legitimate buyers for an always offline gaming option. We have access to the internet almost no matter where we are, or can easily get it. Why should we care if a game needs to check in periodically? What harm is it likely to do to any given legitimate buyer? It's almost certainly worth it to Blizzard to l…
1) you advertise in bold/black letters that internet service is required every X days. No bait and switch.
2) you are required to release an update disabling the call home feature if you plan to take down the activation server.
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Yes, but reportedly if you do this more than a few times they'll get upset with you.
I would hope so. It's easy to finish a game in 30 days, so the system is ripe for abuse. Assuming that the games have progression achievements, GOG can easily see (a) how much time you spent in game, and (b) how far you got. If you choose to abuse the system, you're going to lose the privilege.