XBox One, PS4, DRM, and You

[AzBat]

You clearly didn't read the entire post, so calm down and try not to loose your temper.

I read it fine. Here's your full post for good measure...

Brainfart much? The usage of the expression was accurate.



But wow, it looks like all the DRM-loving folks decided to gang up and fill a thread page with DRM-loving posts overnight (or over-morning, or over-afternoon depending on your timezone).

I can understand the "I can live with that" argument, because some people might prefer being stripped of consumer rights (mainly if they never took advantage of such) than to stay out of their loving platform.
I find that to be an incredibly lazy stance.. one of those that will bite you in the ass later for how lazy you were.. but whatever.

But the "I actually like the DRM" argument?
I actually like that I can't privately resell my used games?
I actually like that I can't freely borrow my games?
I actually like that my console will turn into a brick if my connection goes out for over a day?

Dafuq is wrong with you people? This borders on giving away your self-respect..

And yes, I do find giving up consumer rights happily for a false convenience (as said above) to be lazy.

It's a false convenience for you. Who the hell are you to tell me what's true & false for me? It's called compromise. There has to be give & take or you'll never advance from where you are. So again, I'm sorry you're not happy with the new policy, but some of us are & it's not because we're lazy.

Tommy McClain

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Isn't it funny how after so many years, Joker is still always attacked - and in his person - whenever he speaks the truth?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Yes, the bandaid solution has been the emergence of uber publishers that make profit on one game and lose money on a bunch of others to be able to stay afloat. This isn't sustainable either as you are never guaranteed to have a multi million seller amongst all your games.

Surely the publishers and developers, after three full decades of video games, must have some gauge, insight or instinct on what type of games will be well received and sell well enough to cover costs and make a tidy profit?

I accept that non-mainstream ideas like Sim City (the original), Journey, Braid, Minecraft, FTL, Ico, Heavy Rain, Alan Wake etc, are definitely more a gamble but if you've got a good story to tell, good gameplay, accomplished technical delivery and you can deliver the product in a quarter of the time it took Gearbox to put Aliens Colonial Marines to market, then you're likely going to turn a profit unless you're very unlucky.

It's not witchcraft!

Yes, plenty of studios have been obliterated. The ones remaining are releasing sequel number 3, 4 and 5 which core gamers also complain about. What happens when core gamers stop buying Halo 7, COD 12, or Uncharted 6? Right now publishers have no choice but to milk these cows until the end because they lose so much money on other projects. Again, it can't be sustained.

Blizzard, Rare-of-old, almost all of Sony's first party developers, all seem to have almost unblemished record for producing games that sell like crazy and are a licence to print money. Sequels and trans-generation IP is to be expected when it's selling well but these companies have created a ton of IP, then moved on to new IP, equally if not more successful.

They are all either hugely lucky, in league with the devil, or - more likely - just have a better process for producing great games than other studios. They are examples of doing this consistently over many generations. If they are able to do it, why can't others?

 

[Cjail]

I read that only 20% of games that are released become profitable.
Also this was 4-5 years ago when software sales where far higher so now it's probably even less than that.

If minimal DRM measures like the ones proposed by MS can increase that percentage then I welcome it.

 

[AzBat]

We don't yet know the exact mechanics. Blu-ray Unique Volume Key, or printed serial number on a label - old school. Microsoft just need a unique key to identify a particular purchase because it's the purchase and not the disc that matter.

I think I understand now. You're not concerned at all about the disc being unique. Just the content.

If I were Microsoft, I would have designed the gifting process so that as soon as you "give" your game to another person, then Xbox Live suspends ownership from the sender, preventing you from playing the game. Onwnership when then be in situ until one of the following happens:

• the receiver "accepts" the gift, permanently transferring ownership.
• the receiver "rejects" the gift unused, at which point ownership returns to the sender.
• 7 days expire without the receiver accepting the gift, at which point ownership returns to the sender.

We don't know if this is the case, but I would be surprised if this is far from the mark

It does sound like MS will disable your game once you give it away. I like you're method for gifting digital purchases, but I think MS will only allow you to give away discs. To give it to somebody you just deactivate the game from your account. This frees up the disc for anybody else, but it's a one-time use. What's going to suck is what happens if somebody in your house "accidentally" deactivates your disc & you have to reactivate it for your account? You'll never be able to give that disc to anybody else. That would suck.

Tommy McClain

 

[Scott_Arm]

Surely the publishers and developers, after three full decades of video games, must have some gauge, insight or instinct on what type of games will be well received and sell well enough to cover costs and make a tidy profit?

I accept that non-mainstream ideas like Sim City (the original), Journey, Braid, Minecraft, FTL, Ico, Heavy Rain, Alan Wake etc, are definitely more a gamble but if you've got a good story to tell, good gameplay, accomplished technical delivery and you can deliver the product in a quarter of the time it took Gearbox to put Aliens Colonial Marines to market, then you're likely going to turn a profit unless you're very unlucky.

It's not witchcraft!

Blizzard, Rare-of-old, almost all of Sony's first party developers, all seem to have almost unblemished record for producing games that sell like crazy and are a licence to print money. Sequels and trans-generation IP is to be expected when it's selling well but these companies have created a ton of IP, then moved on to new IP, equally if not more successful.

They are all either hugely lucky, in league with the devil, or - more likely - just have a better process for producing great games than other studios. They are examples of doing this consistently over many generations. If they are able to do it, why can't others?

I think this is totally wishful thinking. Are you sure all Sony first party titles are incredibly profitable, or profitable at all?

 

[Arwin]

Isn't it funny how after so many years, Joker is still always attacked - and in his person - whenever he speaks the truth?

I never felt I had a future in game development, precisely because it has always been lots of crunch, works of passion, relatively low pay (there are exceptions), etc. But you are supporting his most recent comments that the reason the industry he was smart enough to leave a few yaers ago, is now struggeling is because the group publishers are targeting games at is too small an audience, that is filled with cheap, unfeeling/uncaring, selfish bastards? Or are you supporting him by default at this point.

Or would it, just maybe, be wiser to leave any personal/emotional bits out of the discussion at all and just focus on actual arguments ... My very personal feeling is that any contribution to a thread that focusses on someone's person (and people who use the word fanboy don't belong here at all, again, in my very personal opinion), is worthless and can be insta-deleted.

Including, probably, this post, but I am hoping it helps.

You could also think that publishers are making the mistakes here by forcing increasingly expensive iterations of the same, 'safe', formula on a (afaik still growing) consumer market, which, having piles of the same type of game thrown at them, can't support those bad business decisions, Not to mention that they themselves are responsible for making games require a $50 million marketing budget (according to Cliff B. in the recent SHIFT documentary), which adds a stupid burden and overhead.

So instead of the consumers, I say lets blame the publishers. Surely there are very few large publishers out there at the moment that deserve our respect? The current situation reminds me very strongly of the music industry at its worst, where artists were seriously abused and consumers grossly disrespected and manipulated.

EDIT:

No you read it wrong. What I said is that paying core gamers are not enough to keep moving this industry forwards, even when using cheaper outsourcing as so many studios do.

Fair enough, I had read it the same way, but in this case we agree mostly. Not so much on the rest though.

 

[rockaman]

No you read it wrong. What I said is that paying core gamers are not enough to keep moving this industry forwards, even when using cheaper outsourcing as so many studios do.




Yes, the bandaid solution has been the emergence of uber publishers that make profit on one game and lose money on a bunch of others to be able to stay afloat. This isn't sustainable either as you are never guaranteed to have a multi million seller amongst all your games.




Yes, plenty of studios have been obliterated. The ones remaining are releasing sequel number 3, 4 and 5 which core gamers also complain about. What happens when core gamers stop buying Halo 7, COD 12, or Uncharted 6? Right now publishers have no choice but to milk these cows until the end because they lose so much money on other projects. Again, it can't be sustained.




There are risks which exactly why the companies left standing are adapting right before your very eyes. You just don't like how they are adapting to stay alive. That market is what is pushing them in this very direction, it's not random, it's a response to the realities of current game development.

Love this post

 

[Scott_Arm]

I never felt I had a future in game development, precisely because it has always been lots of crunch, works of passion, relatively low pay (there are exceptions), etc. But you are supporting his most recent comments that the reason the industry he was smart enough to leave a few yaers ago, is now struggeling is because the group publishers are targeting games at is too small an audience, that is filled with cheap, unfeeling/uncaring, selfish bastards? Or are you supporting him by default at this point.

Or would it, just maybe, be wiser to leave any personal/emotional bits out of the discussion at all and just focus on actual arguments ... My very personal feeling is that any contribution to a thread that focusses on someone's person (and people who use the word fanboy don't belong here at all, again, in my very personal opinion), is worthless and can be insta-deleted.

Including, probably, this post, but I am hoping it helps.

You could also think that publishers are making the mistakes here by forcing increasingly expensive iterations of the same, 'safe', formula on a (afaik still growing) consumer market, which, having piles of the same type of game thrown at them, can't support those bad business decisions, Not to mention that they themselves are responsible for making games require a $50 million marketing budget (according to Cliff B. in the recent SHIFT documentary), which adds a stupid burden and overhead.

So instead of the consumers, I say lets blame the publishers. Surely there are very few large publishers out there at the moment that deserve our respect? The current situation reminds me very strongly of the music industry at its worst, where artists were seriously abused and consumers grossly disrespected and manipulated.

EDIT:


Fair enough, I had read it the same way, but in this case we agree mostly. Not so much on the rest though.

Predicting which games are going to be a success and budgeting accordingly can't be easy. If you start making fewer games, you run the risk that you won't have a single one that sells well enough to stay afloat. Plus a publisher needs games released every quarter so they can make quarterly revenue. And with delays from developers, you need more titles to make sure that you don't have some slip leaving a quarter empty. Prioritizing which games get the big budgets and which ones get the smaller budgets becomes difficult. If your big budget game fails, maybe the smaller ones don't make enough to cover it. Plus pricing is hard. How do you price the small budget games. Lower price, means you have to sell more copies, which puts you back where you started if the game doesn't take off. Higher price means you're going to be compared to the big budget titles.

The game industry is a huge gamble. It's a pretty terrible investment, to be honest. DRM may be the wrong approach, but it's a response to the market, because the market is tough. I wouldn't be surprised if the console model died off in a couple generations. You're already seeing Microsoft and Sony scale back on the hardware, in terms of pushing for the cutting edge. It's too expensive, and devs wouldn't be able to afford to fully leverage all that hardware anyway. We'll see if digital delivery and DRM saves the industry the way they hope it's going to.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I think I understand now. You're not concerned at all about the disc being unique. Just the content.

Exactly. It could be, but doesn't need to be. Just like today's consoles.

It does sound like MS will disable your game once you give it away. I like you're method for gifting digital purchases, but I think MS will only allow you to give away discs. To give it to somebody you just deactivate the game from your account. This frees up the disc for anybody else, but it's a one-time use. What's going to suck is what happens if somebody in your house "accidentally" deactivates your disc & you have to reactivate it for your account? You'll never be able to give that disc to anybody else. That would suck.

Well that's how I would approach the problem if I were Microsoft. According to Xbox Wire which explains the policies much clearer, trade-in and gifting is indeed limited to disc-based games:

• Trade-in and resell your disc-based games: Today, some gamers choose to sell their old disc-based games back for cash and credit. We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers. Microsoft does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games.
• Give your games to friends: Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.

I'm sure accidentally de-activating or gifting a game will be very difficult

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Surely the publishers and developers, after three full decades of video games, must have some gauge, insight or instinct on what type of games will be well received and sell well enough to cover costs and make a tidy profit?

No, and this is true of all the creative industries. Consumers are fickle and unpredictable. Tastes change, and you never know when an idea that's well received and carefully considered will flop or excel. This is why books like 'Harry Potter' are turned down by countless publishers who don't know whether it'll sell or not, and crap books by Brainless Celeb with a Ghost Writer always get published because the public are drawn to known quantities. This is why 'Mirror's Edge' was funded and released and 'Mirror's Edge 2' canned, because the market didn't respond as EA and Dice thought. It's why a very unsuccessful developer with a lot a failures under its belt and at the brink of collapse managed to suddenly become a global phenomenon with 'Angry Birds', and why Zynga bought OMGPOP off the explosive success of 'Draw Something' only for the bubble to burst (although in their case, Zynga aren't smart publishers with business savvy ). The only thing publishers know from decades of experience is if it works, repeat it until it stops working - hence the sequelitus. But that's not entirely their fault because that's how the consumers work.

7 in 10 published games fail to make their money back. Either the industry is completely inept after 30 years experience of being unable to divine consumer behaviour, or there isn't any real insight or instinct on what games (movies, books, music albums) are going to sell or not.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I think this is totally wishful thinking. Are you sure all Sony first party titles are incredibly profitable, or profitable at all?

Unfortunately their financial reports don't break down into that much detail. A few of what are now first party studios were previously independent and they were certainly doing well enough for Sony to acquire in the first place and I'm also cognisant of the fact that Sony are still undergoing considerable restructuring and downsizing to save money. Some studios have already been closed, I'm assuming the survivors are the profitable ones, although it's possible there are more unprofitable studios that will be closed after they've finished their current projects.

Maybe that's why The Last Guardian hasn't shipped!

 

[joker454]

Blizzard, Rare-of-old, almost all of Sony's first party developers, all seem to have almost unblemished record for producing games that sell like crazy and are a licence to print money. Sequels and trans-generation IP is to be expected when it's selling well but these companies have created a ton of IP, then moved on to new IP, equally if not more successful.

They are all either hugely lucky, in league with the devil, or - more likely - just have a better process for producing great games than other studios. They are examples of doing this consistently over many generations. If they are able to do it, why can't others?

Blizzard has done great....with online only games ironically enough. If we are to believe this thread then Blizzard should be out of business since no one has reliable internet. Odd isn't it? Sony hasn't done that well really, they have bankrolled many games that haven't amounted to much. Plus there's the games they bankroll then cancel that you never even hear of. People will quickly point to Uncharted, but there is a trail of financial carnage behind Sony bankrolled games as well.

The game industry is a huge gamble. It's a pretty terrible investment, to be honest.

It is quite hideous. I was going to say it's like betting 50 million dollars on red at the roulette table but then quickly realized no that's wrong, that roulette bet actually is more likely to give you a return compared to bankrolling a game. On top of that you have to worry about used retail shops parasitically making money off your work, mandatory free downloading of your work, and a fickle audience that can turn on you at any time. People really think business as usual is a good idea?

 

[Scott_Arm]

The thing with first parties is they aren't necessarily under the same pressure as a 3rd party. They need to release games so the company can brag about exclusives and to pad the game library. They can be used to fill a gap, like a platformer, button masher, racing game, fighting game, or whatever company feels they need. I'm sure the ones that are losing money hand-over-fist would be shut down, but breaking even might be acceptable enough, where it wouldn't in the 3rd party world.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I've actually seen lots of quite good looking ingame videos from a title we were developing an E3 trailer for some time ago that I was incredibly excited about - only to have it canceled...

Also look at how entire genres have risen and then fell completely. Adventure games, RTS games, simulators, and so on... A few have seen some success on Kickstarter recently but we still haven't seen the final products to see how they can stand against other games of today.

 

[mrcorbo]

I have been digesting this information and now that we have definitive (though still not complete) information on how the XBOne's DRM will restrict usage I have a couple of thoughts on some of the implementation details.

I don't like that there is (currently) no facility for lending/renting games. Even after bkillian's enlightening post on the subject that not only are these not rights but in some jurisdictions are technically illegal, unless the shared library concept that was mentioned turns out to be more than it seems this is a loss of function that is not being directly balanced by anything that benefits the consumer. If the alternative to this restriction was for there to be higher software prices across the board, I suppose that could be something. If that's the case, though, why not offer the option of buying an "unlocked" version for more money and allow the market to decide what it prefers?

I also don't like the 24hr restriction, because I don't think it's directly necessary to secure the DRM since they could allow disk authentication instead. I actually suspect that the 24 hour check-in has as much to do with making sure that all systems maintain updated firmware to patch vulnerabilities as it does ensuring proper license allocation.

I also wonder, broadly, how many of these restrictions are meant to wean consumers off of physical media by eliminating some of its advantages. I understand, from a business standpoint, why publishers would prefer to go all digital since it eliminates points of risk for them.

Risks like:

• Overestimating demand and fronting the cost to press a bunch of disks that never sell
  
• Having to buy back or partially compensate retailers for that unsold stock.
  
• Underestimating demand so they lose potential sales during the crucial initial sales period.
  
• Having to wrap up development earlier than they would for an all digital release so they can allow time for the disks and packaging to be manufactured and also partially have their release window dictated by the availability of the capacity of those manufacturing facilities making it very painful to hold back the release of a game that could benefit from more development time.

 

[mrcorbo]

Surely the publishers and developers, after three full decades of video games, must have some gauge, insight or instinct on what type of games will be well received and sell well enough to cover costs and make a tidy profit?

As Shifty covered, no they really don't. Movie studios have been at this far longer and they still regularly release massive failures.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

No, and this is true of all the creative industries. Consumers are fickle and unpredictable. Tastes change, and you never know when an idea that's well received and carefully considered will flop or excel.

Thanks for responding. I get fickleness of the public but whizzing through the the list of best selling 360 and PS3 games (most likely to be profitable), there don't look to be any major surprises of gameplay/genre. Mirror's Edge I'd definitely class as risky - I think it would have done much better if they'd designed it to be a £10 XBLA/PSN game on a smaller scale.

I find the 70% profit failure rate to be terrifying. I sincerely believe there are simply too many games out there for most people. I'd guess lots of gamers fall into the time-but-o-money or money-but-no-time camps with a few in the middle. Too many games trying to vie for too customers and anything not scoring a 7 on Eurogamer or 6 on EGDE isn't going to get a look for the most part.

Still, at least nobody mentioned piracy and DRM - getting back OT.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I don't like that there is (currently) no facility for lending/renting games. Even after bkillian's enlightening post on the subject that not only are these not rights but in some jurisdictions are technically illegal, unless the shared library concept that was mentioned turns out to be more than it seems this is a loss of function that is not being directly balanced by anything that benefits the consumer.

I'm with you on this. The rational part of my brain is clearly telling me this is bad for the developer who very obviously lose out on a potential sale here, but lending games, music and movies (all equally bad) has been morally and culturally accepted, even expected, for so long anything else seems weird.

It's a brave new world! Viva la DRM to keep everybody honest.

 

[MfA]

Mirror's Edge I'd definitely class as risky - I think it would have done much better if they'd designed it to be a £10 XBLA/PSN game on a smaller scale.

As much as it was painted as a failure I doubt they lost money on it.