Ubisoft dumps it's DRM.

[Sprig]

It will be cloud gaming that they will switch you to next. Mark my words. Whether you have a pc or console, it won't matter. All the processing will be done by servers and we will have to pay for time played and won't even get to own games. (not that we own games anymore anyway, just the licences to use them.)

 

[Rub'Rum]

Since the first DLCs started coming out I've been telling people that at some point we'd have to blame them (who are buying the DLC even of the worst type) for monthly/hourly or whatever recurring fees for SINGLEPLAYER games. It seems no one wants this to happen, yet almost everyone readily puts their pants down and accepts to be screwed with DLC (woohoo 2$ for little sprites!) and give the wrong signal to gaming companies (ie : these guys really love to pay fees here and there for marginal benefits).

 

[Maniacal]

It will be cloud gaming that they will switch you to next. Mark my words. Whether you have a pc or console, it won't matter. All the processing will be done by servers and we will have to pay for time played and won't even get to own games. (not that we own games anymore anyway, just the licences to use them.)

I highly doubt it. There is OnLive but unless you live close to one of their servers the ;ag kind of kills it. The experience, from what I've heard, is not the same as playing the game on your own system. North America (which buys a huge proportion of video games) is still lagging behind other countries in internet infrastructure and (especially in Canada anyways) bandwidth caps and speeds.

In the USA Comcast is trying to throttle Netflix user's who sue Netflix's online streaming service, and in Canada Netflix has very little available for Streaming and the caps for most people are easily reached if you watch a lot fo streaming movies / big downloads.

I think the newest PC game I own (except Half-Life 2) is Civ 3. And Civ3 is how old? Close to 10 years I think. That could be why I've not came across games with CD keys...

I tried HL2 at a friend some years ago and I didn't like Steam. But HL2 is such a good game that I was willing to bite the dust just for this game.

I really want to buy my games, but Steam and DRM might turn me into a pirate some day. I'm sure that's what the industry is trying to achieve.

Civ3 was released in 2001 (and HL2 in 2004), games have been using CD keys since at least the mid-1990s. Almost every single one of the ~300 games I own has a CD key (if not all).

Since you hardly buy games than I wouldn't be too concerned about Steam, there are still few non-Valve games that require Steam though this number is increasing. However most games are still available like normal, and there are other digital distributors like Good Old Games, GamersGate, and Impulse that don't require a client side program to be running. (You still can't trade games between accounts though).

 

[Sprig]

I think infrastructure is only a small issue and not as big a hindrance as you think. It is always being upgraded. And datacaps will slowly dissappear.

Yes, yes, I know. Telecommunications are just as if not more greedy than Publishers but they are constantly being pushed to provide better service.

Do you think somthing like onlive would work right away? I have no surprise that it is laggy as. But it is a test of capability. I am sure there are some very large and greedy people keeping an eye on it and how the technology develops.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I think infrastructure is only a small issue and not as big a hindrance as you think. It is always being upgraded. And datacaps will slowly dissappear

I wouldn't count on it. Or they are going to become even worst; i.e. 30$ per month + 0,50 cents per gigabytes of usage starting from the very first gigabyte, you know a system where you are self-conscious of your internet usage FROM THE GET GO. Or some crap like that.

Since when are we supposed to expect better deals in telecom and gaming? It's a downhill slope, just like with DLC. Better service doesn't seem to equal better prices for them. Sure, my internet is faster than before... And retardedly expensive.

 

[Maniacal]

The CRTC in Canada was recently "forced" by Bell to force everyone to charge download caps (pretty much a direct attack against Tek Savvy (which is an independent ISP that rents Bell's lines but previously didn't charge overages and had excellent packages (but sadly is not available in my province >_<)) and Netflix users). SHAW Cable now charges $1 per gig up to a max of $50 I think over the limit per month (TELUS, on the other hand, still doesn't because they don't actually have the technology to differentiate , but they still kind of suck here).

 

[Hehehe]

Me neither. I even managed to play LAN with a single copy of Borderlands by being in Offline mode with both computers. That wouldn't work with games that don't support, in their own programming, two games of the same copy playing together at the same time. So, for Borderlands, while I could LAN with one copy, I couldn't play with the same copy in the gamespy system because gamespy authenticates the copy and verifies no 2 people are playing with the same copy. All of this was through Steam too, but Steam doesn't verify because Borderlands was not a Steam game (like Civ 5), I just happened to buy it on Steam.

But yeah, never had Offline mode problems personally.

Wait, what? Is it possible to play Steam games on LAN with one account? Would L4D2 work on LAN (1 account, 4 people)?

Well if you don't have an internet connection you can't play multiplayer anyways. Offline mode works fine for a lot of people, though some people do run into issues. No idea if its any more or less than the normal amount of people who run into bugs/issues with games.

I've never had a problem starting up steam games in offline mode.

I started GTA4 in offline mode some days ago. The game started up fine and all, but at one point it started doing this drunk cam thing (the camera shakes when driving). I hear it is some sort of copy protection thing. It was one time only but still it was weird

@SimonL Also the reason PC has very few exclusives is that since games are so expensive to develop, it is worth it to publish them on many platforms. Consoles have exclusives because they have a powerful supporter (Sony, Microsoft) that is willing to pay to have a good game exclusively on their system in order to have an advantage against their competitors.

 

[Maniacal]

Wait, what? Is it possible to play Steam games on LAN with one account? Would L4D2 work on LAN (1 account, 4 people)?

Depends on the game, some can some can't. However 3 copies would have to be in offline mode. This isn't unique to Steam, Starcraft 2 doesn't support LAN either and it might be a growing trend to prevent "piracy". I highly doubt companies are really losing money because of LAN, but some of them seem to think so (and technically it is against most EULAs and is piracy in at least some cases).

At least with Left 4 Dead 2 there is a 4 pack bundle which gives you 4 copies of the game for the price of 3 ($59.99) and you gift the extra copies to your friends.

I started GTA4 in offline mode some days ago. The game started up fine and all, but at one point it started doing this drunk cam thing (the camera shakes when driving). I hear it is some sort of copy protection thing. It was one time only but still it was weird

If you bought it on Steam, the only Steam DRM on it is that you have to have Steam running. Rockstar decided it was an awesome idea to force bundle GFWL (in order to save) and SecuROm with the game too. Could also just be the game having a bad camera.

 

[Rub'Rum]

It wouldn't work with Left 4 Dead 2 because you basically need to be online on Steam to play L4D2 Online. It's a Steam exclusive afterall. Borderlands, on the other hand, is not a Steam exclusive. If you buy the game in a store in a box, it doesn,t require Steam, and its multiplayer modes are Gamespy or LAN. So if you buy it through Steam, it's exactly the same game and its multiplayer modes are still Gamespy or LAN. The only thing preventing you to play Borderlands online with your friend in the same room on a different computer is that both computer can't be logged on Steam at the same time... Which isn't a problem with Borderlands because you can boot it with Steam in offline mode on both computers and still play LAN mode, which is built into the game independantly from Steam. This isn't the case with Left 4 Dead 2. Like I said, L4D2 uses Steam for its multiplayer. It doesn't even have LAN. And as PrinceScamp said, LAN seems to be on the way out... They kind of do the same crap on the consoles in a way, like how many games don't even come with couch coop anymore and you can only play MP on XBOX live (ex: GTA IV).

 

[Maniacal]

No co-op on consoles makes me mad, and I'm not even much of a console player (especially now that I no longer with with my friend who has them).

Although sometimes even when they do have co-op the way they divided up the screen is.. questionable. Resident Evil 5 and Lost Planet 2 leave half the screen blank O_o (Good thing my friend has a 52" HD LCD TV).

 

[PredatorFett]

Ding dong, the witch is dead...

I was literally thinking of the same song as I was clicking on the topic. No BS.

 

[Hehehe]

If you bought it on Steam, the only Steam DRM on it is that you have to have Steam running. Rockstar decided it was an awesome idea to force bundle GFWL (in order to save) and SecuROm with the game too. Could also just be the game having a bad camera.

ARGH don't even get me started on the GFWL thing. I nearly smashed my monitor thanks to GFWL and RS social club. Also the camera thing was not due to a bad camera, stuff like that just isn't normal. Still, it's no game breaker as I mostly play online.

BTW I miss how old games allowed you to play on LAN with a single copy (then again, I suppose some new games allow that too). In AoE2 for example, you could install the game to 4 computers with one disc, then start the game with the CD in the drive then remove the CD and start the game in another computer and repeat. Also I remember one game having spawn multiplayer feature (never used it so I'm not sure how exactly it works)

 

[Rub'Rum]

BTW I miss how old games allowed you to play on LAN with a single copy (then again, I suppose some new games allow that too). In AoE2 for example, you could install the game to 4 computers with one disc, then start the game with the CD in the drive then remove the CD and start the game in another computer and repeat. Also I remember one game having spawn multiplayer feature (never used it so I'm not sure how exactly it works)

Spawn copies of games had the "singleplayer" blacked out and you could only play MP. It could play without the CD in the drive, but you could play it from anywhere as long as it was MP (usually MODEM or LAN play). So you could play with your friend who was in a different house, through phone modem. If you ask me that was a good method to actually sell the game since I it made a bunch of my friends wanna buy Warcraft 2 once they had played it in MP with me (and then when I wasn't available to play MP they couldn't play it in SP!). Spawn copies also had some quirks like, back in the days, music was too large to be installed on hard drives and was read from CD, consequently the spawn copies playing without the CD had midi versions of the music.

I also used to do the disk swapping for games like diablo 2 and such for LAN, it still works for a few games but it's getting less and less common... Really, there's a general trend both on computers and consoles (GTA IV no couch coop/split screen) to make perfectly sure everybody has to have its own computer/console and copy of the game and is sitting squarely by himself in his own basement. You know, gamers really need to spend more time alone in their basements.