Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 152 posts

Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies

#121

Post by drivingmenuts »

sivam wrote: post #56

They should rename the Xbox One to the Xbox 180, it would be very apt. On a more serious note, I don't like this rollback. It only goes to show how the witchhunt and echo chamber on Reddit worked. Even before the reveal, Microsoft was falsely accused of trying to game Reddit and everyone flew off the handle over someone pretty much lying to be a troll. Say the word "DRM" and you get bucketloads of Reddit karma and po…

A friend posited the theory that all of this was a calculated move on Microsoft's part.

First, they throw up the idea of some draconian DRM, which they then later retract. The first move gets them tons of publicity and tongue-wagging, the second move starts to make that positive publicity. They're banking on gamers being so addicted, they won't really care that they've been played for idiot chumps.

If the market for the new XBox was 12-year old children, they wouldn't even have bothered. But, since they're really marketing to adults 20-35 or so, they have to look like good guys to the people they're talking out of their money.

This was calculated. Reddit and everyone else got played. Hard and dry.

Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies

#122

Post by shawnz »

contextfree wrote: post #112
magic_haze wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very simple. Keep the 24 hour restrictions as-is, but allow transition to an offline mode after notifying the mothership. This disallows all the family sharing features. Games installed using a physical disk would require the disk to be present, downloaded games are unaffected (since you can't sell them without connecting to xbox live.) This takes care of the submarine scenario. When you're back online, check for the…

Games were meant to be installable on multiple consoles, so if they wanted reselling or giving away a game to completely disassociate the license from the seller's/giver's account, every console with that game would need to be kept online to verify this. So if there were an offline mode that disabled license-transfer features, it would have to apply as long as even one console were in this mode. This means that it wo…

> This means that it would be possible for someone to put themselves into a state where they'd be permanently prevented from reselling or giving games because they don't have physical access to some console that's been put in offline mode.

This isn't really too big of a problem. Just require users to phone in and request a license transfer if they lose a console. Limit the number of times that a customer can "lose" their console without an investigation.

Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies

#123

Post by clavalle »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #121
sivam wrote: post #56

They should rename the Xbox One to the Xbox 180, it would be very apt. On a more serious note, I don't like this rollback. It only goes to show how the witchhunt and echo chamber on Reddit worked. Even before the reveal, Microsoft was falsely accused of trying to game Reddit and everyone flew off the handle over someone pretty much lying to be a troll. Say the word "DRM" and you get bucketloads of Reddit karma and po…

A friend posited the theory that all of this was a calculated move on Microsoft's part. First, they throw up the idea of some draconian DRM, which they then later retract. The first move gets them tons of publicity and tongue-wagging, the second move starts to make that positive publicity. They're banking on gamers being so addicted, they won't really care that they've been played for idiot chumps. If the market for…

That would be a valid theory if they didn't have a very similar competing product released at about the same time. A competitor that captured the lion's share of positive publicity by merely maintaining the status quo.

As it stands, I will be surprised if XBox One captures 25% of the latest gen console market when it is all said and done.

Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies

#125

Post by lizardking »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #43

>On the downside, there will be no digital "family" sharing as was previously announced, and disc-based games will require the disc to be in the tray to be played. Nooooooooooooooooo. Please still allow me to opt in for digital downloads so I can finally stick the console somewhere where I don't have to see it, hear it or suffer it's heat wrath.

I want this as well, but I'm not exactly sure how that will jive with the mandatory kinect. My 360, along with all of my other components are in the basement.

Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies

#126

Post by LaurelCrowned »

knodi wrote: post #124

This is a shame, I was really looking forwards to disc-less play and family sharing. How cool would it have been if all my friends made a family group and with that we can all play each others games. But no people love gamestop.

Pretty sure they would be limiting that to one IP address. There would be restrictions.

Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies

#127

Post by Cyril-Boh »

tjdetwiler wrote: post #5

I always thought they should have applied all the new DRM features to digital downloads only. In that context, sharing and selling does look consumer friendly and if they make it convenient consumers will move away from physical media.

I wish they coined another term for this rather then digital downloads. How can a download not be digital?

Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies

#128

Post by AlexDanger »

interpol_p wrote: post #111
mikelat wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that it started with the simple idea of "we want to move to digital so we can phase out retail and get more out of each sale like steam does" (pressure from shareholders and increases in development costs). Then they probably went through every worst case scenario possible, like a group of friends sharing a single licence of skyrim and just leaving their consoles offline, and made rules around them. It pr…

> Then they probably went through every worst case scenario possible It's such a bad idea to develop a product like this. Developers who focus on anti-piracy measures miss the point: focusing on a frictionless way for consumers to acquire your product (and keep it up-to-date), while ignoring all those who pirate it will lead to more money in the long run. Most anti-piracy measures introduce friction for genuine consu…

The success of Valve and Steam distribution show this is absolutely true. As far as I'm concerned its all that needs to be said on the piracy debate. The proof is in the profits.

Valve are a private company but certainly worth billions and $500-800m annual revenue. Gabe claims, per employee, they are more profitable than Google and Apple. See the forbes article for more analysis [1]. Note its from 2011 and Gabe has said elsewhere that Valve had a huge 2012, approx 50% revenue growth.

Here's another short article with Gabe commenting on their entry into the Russian market. [2]

GoG is also a private company, but well established and popular with netizens. I'd be very interested to see their financial figures.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverchiang/2011/02/15/valve-an...

[2] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111023/22062816484/just-a...

Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies

#129

Post by [deleted] »

jstevens85 wrote: post #102
InclinedPlane wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you missed the point entirely. Person A installs the game. Then goes on a cruise ship, playing the installed game, giving the disc to Person B. Person B takes the disc and can't install it because the code that came with the game has already been used. If he or she wants to play it without the disc then they need to buy a new code. Person B plays the game as much as they want then lends the game to Person C. Pe…

Except that publishers won't agree to such a deal, meaning that any console implementing such a policy would lose third-party support resulting in significantly decreased sales units, and ultimately billion dollar loses for the console manufacturer.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies

#130

Post by jonny_eh »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #121
sivam wrote: post #56

They should rename the Xbox One to the Xbox 180, it would be very apt. On a more serious note, I don't like this rollback. It only goes to show how the witchhunt and echo chamber on Reddit worked. Even before the reveal, Microsoft was falsely accused of trying to game Reddit and everyone flew off the handle over someone pretty much lying to be a troll. Say the word "DRM" and you get bucketloads of Reddit karma and po…

A friend posited the theory that all of this was a calculated move on Microsoft's part. First, they throw up the idea of some draconian DRM, which they then later retract. The first move gets them tons of publicity and tongue-wagging, the second move starts to make that positive publicity. They're banking on gamers being so addicted, they won't really care that they've been played for idiot chumps. If the market for…

Microsoft is not that clever, and regardless, I don't see how this 180 will turn out in their favour. They have clearly lost momentum to this.
Post reply on HN