Poor preparation by organisers crashes live Killer Instinct tournament

[BoardBonobo]

I thought they had resolved all the DRM fiasco? This was a pretty embarrassing fail.

Source

Around about the 06:30 mark, this Killer Instinct bout at the Defend the School tournament at Queens College, New York was brought to a halt when the Xbox One being used suddenly returned to the dashboard and asked the players, ‘Do you own this game or app?’

The message continued, “If you have a game disc, insert it now. If there is no disc, make sure you are signed into Xbox Live. If you don’t have rights for playing it, you’ll need to buy it at the Xbox Store.”

Put it this way, even pausing the game during tournament play counts as a loss for the offender, so you can imagine how annoyed this would have made both concentrating players – Rico Suave and DesDinova91 – as they were locked into the flow of battle. Worse still, the tourney was being streamed live on Twitch at the time.

The match wasn’t just part of a casual tourney either, it was a qualifying heat for New York City’s pro tournament Defend The North. When the DRM prompt kicked in, the players were not asked if they wanted to save their progress first, meaning that the battle had to be restarted.

 

[AzBat]

Doesn't look so nefarious...

A recent Killer Instinct tournament was brought to a grinding halt when the Xbox One the game was being played on came up with a message:

“Do you own this game or app?”

“If you have a game disc, insert it now. If there is no disc, make sure you are signed into Xbox Live. If you don’t have rights for playing it, you’ll need to buy it at the Xbox Store.”

The game needed to check in. That sounds awfully like the DRM Microsoft said wouldn’t be in the Xbox One after its 180 degree turnabout. On the surface, it seems a bit worrying – but in truth, this whole debacle is a bit of a non-story.

Yes, it’s DRM, but it’s the same sort of DRM that you’ll find on the Xbox 360 right now. Or the PS3, or PS4 for that matter. The Xbox One in question here, was not the one originally used to download the game, you see. If it were, the game would have been tied to that console’s ID (and the originating profile), and would never need to check for licences, functioning just fine without an internet connection. It’s actually more lax DRM than on the 360, which requires that the original purchaser be actively signed in for the game to be playable.

What it seems to be, is a case of the tournament organisers downloading the game to multiple consoles from a few originating profiles – and then not making sure that the console’s had authenticated the game for use in time. If each console playing the game had bought the game’s Season Pass (to get all the characters) then it wouldn’t have happened.

http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/no-xbox-one-drm-isnt-killing-killer-instinct/

Tommy McClain

 

[Grall]

If you're DLing a game to more than one console from the same XBL account for an online tournament of all things then you're just asking for trouble.

Organizer fail! On a serious level.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

Definitely an organizer fail. Could have happened on several platforms.

 

[NRP]

The ironic thing is this would have probably worked fine were it not for the melodramatic "DRM fiasco" bruhaha drummed up prior to launch.

 

[Cyan]

The ironic thing is this would have probably worked fine were it not for the melodramatic "DRM fiasco" bruhaha drummed up prior to launch.

Agreed. Now people are jumping on anything Xbox One, and the console is always closely kept an eye on. And since it is a console with so few friends -at least if the internet is to be believed- Microsoft must tread carefully, very carefully....

 

[eastmen]

this would have happened on the xbox 360 , ps3 and ps4. They all use the same setup in that way

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think it'd be different on PS3 etc. because you couldn't actually get the game running. It'll only run on an account the game is owned by, or a registered console. Oh, I suppose if they are only using 2 consoles it'd work okay. What XB1 does, as I understand it, is allow a demo so you can play, and then it prompts you to buy/register the game. The organisers failed to understand this. They bought the game on one account, tried it on a second XB1 ,found it was working and went with it, until it kicked in with the 'you are playing a game you haven't bought' message which was entirely true.

Are there notifications when running an unlicensed game that tell you it's in demo mode? It'd be nice if there was a reminder for people who have expectations from prior experience and a lack of understanding of the different download policies across platforms (although it's still the organisers' fault for not preparing and testing adequately).

 

[Sigfried1977]

this would have happened on the xbox 360 , ps3 and ps4. They all use the same setup in that way

They don't. At least not the PS3.

 

[ZeroEx]

Glad I read this now.

Tbh I buy every game I need for my tournaments, if they are physical copies perfect. If it's downloadable, I make sure it's saved to a removable HDD with profiles and before an event, make sure the console and the game are registered and working.

These tournament organisers just misunderstood the situation with Xbox One game sharing and didn't actually purchase each copy of KI for individual profiles or register a copy of KI to each console they used.

Using one profile as a master profile worked with Xbox 360. There is a special trick you could use to get a game working from one profile as long as you stayed in the game and never restarted the console or went back to dashboard. It would save TO's time, but it was risky.

These guys took a gamble and it hurt them. Plain and simple.

 

[DieH@rd]

I see this as a failure of Microsoft and developer who made the game. Nobody knew beforehand that this game requires 24hr online check.

 

[mrcorbo]

I see this as a failure of Microsoft and developer who made the game. Nobody knew beforehand that this game requires 24hr online check.

The game doesn't require a 24hr check. It (like any other digital download game being played on a console other than the one it was purchased on) requires the owner to log into and remain logged into their account to authenticate. These are well-established and understood rules that go all the way back to the beginning of the last generation.

To clarify: If the event organizers had sprung for copies of the game to be bought on the consoles that were being used to play the game this would not have happened.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

I see this as a failure of Microsoft and developer who made the game. Nobody knew beforehand that this game requires 24hr online check.

Absolutely not.

 

[shredenvain]

I see this as a failure of Microsoft and developer who made the game. Nobody knew beforehand that this game requires 24hr online check.

Where are you getting this 24hr check in from?

I cant tell if you are trolling or being sarcastic or what.

I own Killer Instinct on the xbox one and I dont have my X1 connected to any internet connection. I purchased the game when I downloaded the day one update while at my mother's house.

I really dont understand the trend on the net right now of it being "cool" to bash the xbox one.
Thats all this KI DRM article is. Its an excuse for people that enjoy hating on the xbox to continue to do so. Its really common sense that if you are going to play a digital only title at a tourny on multiple consoles that you need to purchase the game on each console. Damn all this is getting old.