Saints Row: The Third to require online pass for co-op.

[go-10]

who the fuck cares you won't find the game used day 1 anyways
besides its not like the brand new games costs more, they cost the same and have the code inside for FREE, I'm just glad this is putting a stop on pirates

Actually, there are programs that will generate a working code for online passes. It's been done for Uncharted 3 fairly often.

The problem is, since it needs a working code, that means that people who generate codes are technically stealing codes that people who bought the game new have. So they can buy the game new, put the code in, then have it say the code is invalid because it's already been used. Because it was.

tl;dr, pirates are assholes.

0__o are you serious? man now I hate pirates even more, fucking cock mongrels!

 

[Yopaz]

Servers don't create and maintain themselves, no. But the publishers don't have to bother with it. In games with dedicated servers, the gamers host their own servers -- they usually pay for them with donations from server regulars. In the case of matchmaking, there's one central server that handles a tiny amount of data (it literally does nothing but keep track of player stats; things like how many times you've prestiged in a CoD game) and the individual players handle the rest through a peer to peer network. Even then, the bandwidth used by a game is tiny; WoW players cost Blizzard less than a dollar a month a piece, and they're ridiculously hard on the servers. For the average FPS, we're talking kilobytes of data in an average play session, maybe upgraded to megabytes if voice chat is being carried too. That costs next to nothing; the only reason the servers are as expensive as they are is because most groups just rent them from a third party. A lot of older games (with lower system requirements for the server) that still have dedicated servers are hosted on an old linux box in some guys garage, using his home internet connection. The whole "servers are expensive" deal is a lie to get consumers on the publisher's side; gamers, having a history of gullibility in this area, fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Edit: and to emphasisze, the servers for WoW are hosted by Blizzard. The servers for nearly all FPS's (Planetside and Quake Live being the only exceptions I can think of -- and surprise surprise, the former is on a subscription based model just like WoW, while the latter is free to the user, with ads and premium accounts (which get rid of the ads and let you host your own servers) are hosted by the users, who pay for everything.

Player hosted servers are great, but the idea that they can serve as the whole backbone for a modern AAA game is ridiculous. Gamers are a generally a tech savy bunch, but i very much doubt there are enough out there with the resources and know-how to run enough servers to support millions of users; to say nothing of how many of such people who are willing.

I never claimed that hosting game servers was a crippling expense on gaming companies. I realize that its a relatively cheap operation relative to each individual user. Thats irrelevant. They are providing a service, and can reasonably expect to be compensated for their efforts. It's called capitalism.

They actually do just that, though: do some research into how these systems work, some real research, not just listening to marketing buzz about Project $10. You'll wind up shocked and just as heavily against it as I am.

Oh no, I have to pay the developers money to get access to all their product.

Whatever shall I do.

Woe is me.

*insert more sarcasm here*

Hey, if you want to promote anti-consumer policies, go for it.

How is it anti-consumer exactly?

I will buy the game new. Therefore I get the code, and the devs get my money.

Gamers today are self entitled.

Oh so I'm not entitled to multiplayer on a game I've bought? Buying it used is a punishable offence, is it?

If you pay the full price you get the full game. It's not that complicated.

If you legally purchase the game, no matter what the price agreed upon, you get the full game. It's not that complicated.

And it's legal for the publisher to make online passes. Do you got a point there?

Yes, that people with large amounts of money can pay lawyers to either find or create a loophole that circumvents consumer rights. We should be outraged that they did this and trying to get a law passed that patches the hole, not going "thank you, sir, may I have another?"

Spoiler: this videoclip shows the reaction of the average gamer to the excesses of the industry

Only problem is, very, very few of them are even trying to get into the "fraternity," which in this metaphor is the industry, so sitting there and asking for more does absolutely nothing positive.

Edit: By the way, in case anyone has a lacking movie education and doesn't know what the clip is from, it's from National Lampoon's Animal House, not some creepy porno.

It's not a loophole at all. Please if you want to use the law to support your whining over the fact that they want money to cover server costs please for the love of god learn the law first.

Call it what you want; it goes completely against the spirit of the law, but follows the letter of the law. To me, that is the definition of a loophole. The biggest mistake consumers ever made was accepting the first EULA, because our rights have been on a downward slope ever since. They aren't licensing the games to us, but because they have a piece of paper that claims they are, they can get away with it. Thing is, those don't even fly in the courts of most countries; in the EU, they're explicitly invalid, and even in the US, their legal status is undecided. It's going to take a ruling by the Supreme Court to decide it, and it will probably be a 5-4 decision, but there's a good chance any EULA which actually made it that far would be struck down.

So World of Warcraft is the biggest lawbreaker of all the game industry by this logic? Not only do we have to pay for the game once. We have to register an account, then we have to pay to maintain their</b servers? It costs money to run servers, thus it's not unfair if we have to pay for it.

No, World of Warcraft is and always has been a service, not a product. The purchase price doesn't pay for the disc so much as the initial 15 days or whatever it is of service. After that, you pay $15 a month. Heck, most of the game isn't even on the disc; it's server side, not client side. With these other games, the online part is hosted by the user, using code that is on the disc -- and therefore part of the sale. Comparing WoW's business model to what's going on here is like comparing the fees on Cable or Satellite Radio to a physical movie or CD.

Edit: And yes, you read that right. The "server costs" are entirely footed by the players; the game company has jack squat to do with it. WoW uses a different system, where the servers are entirely hosted by Blizzard, and therefore have to be paid for on an ongoing basis. Even then, they way overcharge for it; each user incurs a cost on the order of pennies every month, but they each pay out $15. No wonder Blizzard is such a successful corporation...

Yeah, the difference is that you pay to use the servers one time, rather than once a month. Just because there's no content on the servers they cost money to maintain. We pay once, they pay until they decide the servers are dead and not worth keeping up anymore. So they are selling both a game and a service. The game can be played without the service so what are you complaining about?

Edit: even when you're hosting a server you connect through a network that connects you to those you are playing with. It might not be a massive cost for each player, but there is a cost involved. Let me add that you should learn how technology work while you're digging into the laws.

Read my post above this one, bro. You're the one who is showing ignorance here, not me. I've been gaming online since 2002, and have been an active member of multiple server communities. I know how this crap works.

Edit: also, if you're not getting it, the "network" you connect to when the servers are user hosted (and almost all of them are; the few that aren't are just kind of seed servers that are only left up until the community takes off on its own, and matchmaking games don't even go that far) is called "the internet," and you pay your ISP for access to it, not the game company, who has absolutely nothing to do with it. The only cost they have is the stats server, which is such a negligible cost that they may as well be complaining that each new player isn't directly contributing to the cost of heating their offices (in fact, more so, because the server costs way, way less), and tacking a fee on for the purpose.

Wow, you've been playing online since 2002? Then you must clearly know everything about everything. Now if you didn't get it, I was now using sarcasm.

Back in high school we used to play CS over LAN, but we had to dodge Steam because the school network blocked it. What we did was that we cracked the game so it could start without Steam and then we could play LAN. However when I got home and wanted to play online I could not connect to any servers without Steam, and no-one not on the same network could connect to my servers. Why is that? Because internet connection alone is not enough. You can't google your way into a server. Matchmaking works in a way to track down fitting servers based on your demands for you. You connect through a network and while the cost might be minimal, there is a small cost. It's like saying you should not be punished for shoplifting something cheap. The store is losing almost nothing on you doing it.

The internet alone /is/ enough when dedicated servers are involved. The client connects to the server through the internet. Your cracked version of counterstrike was set up to only go through a local network (LAN: Local Area Network), and therefore couldn't connect to any internet based servers. Incidentally, Steam is only involved in Counterstrike as far as launching the game; some of the servers are connected to VAC, valve's anti-cheat service, but that connection is from the game server to the VAC server; the costs involved there, which are even lower than those involved with a game server, aren't directly related to anything done by the users -- and besides, Valve is the only game company that uses their own anti-cheat service. The rest of them either pay to use Punkbuster or pay valve to use VAC in their games -- which is how Valve pays for it. The bill is not footed by the users. Anyway, there are two checks you would have to get through to play a cracked copy of Counterstrike online. The first is getting around the connection to Steam, which you did. The second is connecting to a server which is not VAC secured, which do, in fact, exist. It's not the network's fault if you didn't know enough to do the second part. If you couldn't see the servers at all, it's because whoever cracked it didn't do a very good job, and they somehow disabled internet connections -- which would be silly, because Counterstrike has built in LAN support, so it's not like they would have needed to hack it in and replace the internet functionality with it.

As for matchmaking: it's a peer to peer network. It basically works like bit torrent. This is less like arguing that shoplifting costs Gamestop very little per person, and more like refusing to do business with a store that charges you a fee for enjoying the air conditioning on top of whatever it is you actually buy -- and that's assuming there's any costs involved for the company. The reality is that it's more like a store charging you for the air conditioning you have in your own house, or in the cases of dedicated servers that you play on but don't personally own, it's like going on a beer run for a party at a friend's place, and having them tack on a fee for using your friend's refrigerator to store the beer, even though they have nothing to do with that particular fridge.

And yeah, I've been playing online since 2002. That in itself isn't enough to show that I know what I'm doing, but the fact stated in the same sentence which claims says I've been an active member of multiple server communities (read: the people who use and, for a small percentage of them, pay for the servers) should show that I have some inkling of where the costs go. The fact that you apparently didn't understand what I meant by that shows that it's not me who is lacking information here.

Now if we remove all of this post's bragging about your obviously superior skills to anyone else in the whole wide world I can see you mentioned small costs. Not because of the users. Costs that would be there whatever you do to avoid cheating. On what grounds do you state that there are nothing like that with Saints Row The Third? However, you know what. Don't answer that. Boycott the game and hate THQ all you want for wanting to earn money. In the meantime I will be happy playing Saints Row The Third both offline and online and not caring about you or anyone else who hates it for using online passes.

Sheesh, man, do you speak English? Yes, I've been constantly mentioning small costs. I've also been explaining that the costs are incurred by the users, and the publishers have absolutely nothing to do with it. I wasn't bragging about superior knowledge, either; I was establishing credentials. The only credentials you've established so far are that you played a cracked version of Counterstrike and didn't understand how the crack worked. Oh, and funny thing about Saints Row the Third: It's a console game. Console games don't have anti-cheat, so there's no licensing fees involved there. Even if there were, it's not like it's a monthly fee; it's licensed the way, say, the Havok Physics engine is. Punkbuster and VAC are maintained by their respective owners in order to keep getting people to use them.

Funny thing you should mention it. Console games do sometimes have protection against cheats. Also Saints Row The Third is released on PC. Now go back to boycotting and hating this game. I will still love it even though you hate it because a small part that probably wont alter your experience of the game by much. Will you stop bothering me if I say everything you ever said about everything is completely correct.

Online passes is the work of the devil.
The publishers are violating a law, because all laws say you are not allowed to protect your goods in any way.
Publishers and developers do not deserve to earn money, they should in fact make all games free and just be happy that their fans get filled with joy from playing them.

 

[Smertnik]

Even if I considered buying SR3 used and had any actual interest in the co-op I wouldn't mind.

It's only understandable that they want to profit from the used game sales in some way, what's the big deal.

 

[walrusaurus]

They actually do just that, though: do some research into how these systems work, some real research, not just listening to marketing buzz about Project $10. You'll wind up shocked and just as heavily against it as I am.

No i won't. Because you totally ignored my point. The viability (or lack thereof) of a user operated infrastructure, is entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Namely, if you want to play on THQ's servers than they have every right to expect payment for their investment. If you feel that paying them is somehow 'wrong' you're completely free to not use their service. Thats called capitalism too.

 

[MLionheart]

I am fine with this.

 

[TK421]

And now you have more of a reason to buy new. Which is the main point of online passes, they want you to buy new. The other part of it is recouping lost revenue from used sales, but everyone knows that part already.

Except that they aren't recouping any lost revenue, because they aren't losing revenue from used sales. When I buy a game used, it's because I wouldn't have bought it new because I thought it wasn't worth the price. If I wasn't going to buy it new anyway, the aren't losing any money.

 

[zombie goat fetish]

I don't have a problem with this and the Game and Gamestop shops near me give passes with the second hand titles as well.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

They actually do just that, though: do some research into how these systems work, some real research, not just listening to marketing buzz about Project $10. You'll wind up shocked and just as heavily against it as I am.

No i won't. Because you totally ignored my point. The viability (or lack thereof) of a user operated infrastructure, is entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Namely, if you want to play on THQ's servers than they have every right to expect payment for their investment. If you feel that paying them is somehow 'wrong' you're completely free to not use their service. Thats called capitalism too.

Then I guess you get to live in ignorance of the fact that THQ is not hosting servers, and it is, in fact, a user hosted network.

Servers don't create and maintain themselves, no. But the publishers don't have to bother with it. In games with dedicated servers, the gamers host their own servers -- they usually pay for them with donations from server regulars. In the case of matchmaking, there's one central server that handles a tiny amount of data (it literally does nothing but keep track of player stats; things like how many times you've prestiged in a CoD game) and the individual players handle the rest through a peer to peer network. Even then, the bandwidth used by a game is tiny; WoW players cost Blizzard less than a dollar a month a piece, and they're ridiculously hard on the servers. For the average FPS, we're talking kilobytes of data in an average play session, maybe upgraded to megabytes if voice chat is being carried too. That costs next to nothing; the only reason the servers are as expensive as they are is because most groups just rent them from a third party. A lot of older games (with lower system requirements for the server) that still have dedicated servers are hosted on an old linux box in some guys garage, using his home internet connection. The whole "servers are expensive" deal is a lie to get consumers on the publisher's side; gamers, having a history of gullibility in this area, fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Edit: and to emphasisze, the servers for WoW are hosted by Blizzard. The servers for nearly all FPS's (Planetside and Quake Live being the only exceptions I can think of -- and surprise surprise, the former is on a subscription based model just like WoW, while the latter is free to the user, with ads and premium accounts (which get rid of the ads and let you host your own servers) are hosted by the users, who pay for everything.

Player hosted servers are great, but the idea that they can serve as the whole backbone for a modern AAA game is ridiculous. Gamers are a generally a tech savy bunch, but i very much doubt there are enough out there with the resources and know-how to run enough servers to support millions of users; to say nothing of how many of such people who are willing.

I never claimed that hosting game servers was a crippling expense on gaming companies. I realize that its a relatively cheap operation relative to each individual user. Thats irrelevant. They are providing a service, and can reasonably expect to be compensated for their efforts. It's called capitalism.

They actually do just that, though: do some research into how these systems work, some real research, not just listening to marketing buzz about Project $10. You'll wind up shocked and just as heavily against it as I am.

Oh no, I have to pay the developers money to get access to all their product.

Whatever shall I do.

Woe is me.

*insert more sarcasm here*

Hey, if you want to promote anti-consumer policies, go for it.

How is it anti-consumer exactly?

I will buy the game new. Therefore I get the code, and the devs get my money.

Gamers today are self entitled.

Oh so I'm not entitled to multiplayer on a game I've bought? Buying it used is a punishable offence, is it?

If you pay the full price you get the full game. It's not that complicated.

If you legally purchase the game, no matter what the price agreed upon, you get the full game. It's not that complicated.

And it's legal for the publisher to make online passes. Do you got a point there?

Yes, that people with large amounts of money can pay lawyers to either find or create a loophole that circumvents consumer rights. We should be outraged that they did this and trying to get a law passed that patches the hole, not going "thank you, sir, may I have another?"

Spoiler: this videoclip shows the reaction of the average gamer to the excesses of the industry

Only problem is, very, very few of them are even trying to get into the "fraternity," which in this metaphor is the industry, so sitting there and asking for more does absolutely nothing positive.

Edit: By the way, in case anyone has a lacking movie education and doesn't know what the clip is from, it's from National Lampoon's Animal House, not some creepy porno.

It's not a loophole at all. Please if you want to use the law to support your whining over the fact that they want money to cover server costs please for the love of god learn the law first.

Call it what you want; it goes completely against the spirit of the law, but follows the letter of the law. To me, that is the definition of a loophole. The biggest mistake consumers ever made was accepting the first EULA, because our rights have been on a downward slope ever since. They aren't licensing the games to us, but because they have a piece of paper that claims they are, they can get away with it. Thing is, those don't even fly in the courts of most countries; in the EU, they're explicitly invalid, and even in the US, their legal status is undecided. It's going to take a ruling by the Supreme Court to decide it, and it will probably be a 5-4 decision, but there's a good chance any EULA which actually made it that far would be struck down.

So World of Warcraft is the biggest lawbreaker of all the game industry by this logic? Not only do we have to pay for the game once. We have to register an account, then we have to pay to maintain their</b servers? It costs money to run servers, thus it's not unfair if we have to pay for it.

No, World of Warcraft is and always has been a service, not a product. The purchase price doesn't pay for the disc so much as the initial 15 days or whatever it is of service. After that, you pay $15 a month. Heck, most of the game isn't even on the disc; it's server side, not client side. With these other games, the online part is hosted by the user, using code that is on the disc -- and therefore part of the sale. Comparing WoW's business model to what's going on here is like comparing the fees on Cable or Satellite Radio to a physical movie or CD.

Edit: And yes, you read that right. The "server costs" are entirely footed by the players; the game company has jack squat to do with it. WoW uses a different system, where the servers are entirely hosted by Blizzard, and therefore have to be paid for on an ongoing basis. Even then, they way overcharge for it; each user incurs a cost on the order of pennies every month, but they each pay out $15. No wonder Blizzard is such a successful corporation...

Yeah, the difference is that you pay to use the servers one time, rather than once a month. Just because there's no content on the servers they cost money to maintain. We pay once, they pay until they decide the servers are dead and not worth keeping up anymore. So they are selling both a game and a service. The game can be played without the service so what are you complaining about?

Edit: even when you're hosting a server you connect through a network that connects you to those you are playing with. It might not be a massive cost for each player, but there is a cost involved. Let me add that you should learn how technology work while you're digging into the laws.

Read my post above this one, bro. You're the one who is showing ignorance here, not me. I've been gaming online since 2002, and have been an active member of multiple server communities. I know how this crap works.

Edit: also, if you're not getting it, the "network" you connect to when the servers are user hosted (and almost all of them are; the few that aren't are just kind of seed servers that are only left up until the community takes off on its own, and matchmaking games don't even go that far) is called "the internet," and you pay your ISP for access to it, not the game company, who has absolutely nothing to do with it. The only cost they have is the stats server, which is such a negligible cost that they may as well be complaining that each new player isn't directly contributing to the cost of heating their offices (in fact, more so, because the server costs way, way less), and tacking a fee on for the purpose.

Wow, you've been playing online since 2002? Then you must clearly know everything about everything. Now if you didn't get it, I was now using sarcasm.

Back in high school we used to play CS over LAN, but we had to dodge Steam because the school network blocked it. What we did was that we cracked the game so it could start without Steam and then we could play LAN. However when I got home and wanted to play online I could not connect to any servers without Steam, and no-one not on the same network could connect to my servers. Why is that? Because internet connection alone is not enough. You can't google your way into a server. Matchmaking works in a way to track down fitting servers based on your demands for you. You connect through a network and while the cost might be minimal, there is a small cost. It's like saying you should not be punished for shoplifting something cheap. The store is losing almost nothing on you doing it.

The internet alone /is/ enough when dedicated servers are involved. The client connects to the server through the internet. Your cracked version of counterstrike was set up to only go through a local network (LAN: Local Area Network), and therefore couldn't connect to any internet based servers. Incidentally, Steam is only involved in Counterstrike as far as launching the game; some of the servers are connected to VAC, valve's anti-cheat service, but that connection is from the game server to the VAC server; the costs involved there, which are even lower than those involved with a game server, aren't directly related to anything done by the users -- and besides, Valve is the only game company that uses their own anti-cheat service. The rest of them either pay to use Punkbuster or pay valve to use VAC in their games -- which is how Valve pays for it. The bill is not footed by the users. Anyway, there are two checks you would have to get through to play a cracked copy of Counterstrike online. The first is getting around the connection to Steam, which you did. The second is connecting to a server which is not VAC secured, which do, in fact, exist. It's not the network's fault if you didn't know enough to do the second part. If you couldn't see the servers at all, it's because whoever cracked it didn't do a very good job, and they somehow disabled internet connections -- which would be silly, because Counterstrike has built in LAN support, so it's not like they would have needed to hack it in and replace the internet functionality with it.

As for matchmaking: it's a peer to peer network. It basically works like bit torrent. This is less like arguing that shoplifting costs Gamestop very little per person, and more like refusing to do business with a store that charges you a fee for enjoying the air conditioning on top of whatever it is you actually buy -- and that's assuming there's any costs involved for the company. The reality is that it's more like a store charging you for the air conditioning you have in your own house, or in the cases of dedicated servers that you play on but don't personally own, it's like going on a beer run for a party at a friend's place, and having them tack on a fee for using your friend's refrigerator to store the beer, even though they have nothing to do with that particular fridge.

And yeah, I've been playing online since 2002. That in itself isn't enough to show that I know what I'm doing, but the fact stated in the same sentence which claims says I've been an active member of multiple server communities (read: the people who use and, for a small percentage of them, pay for the servers) should show that I have some inkling of where the costs go. The fact that you apparently didn't understand what I meant by that shows that it's not me who is lacking information here.

Now if we remove all of this post's bragging about your obviously superior skills to anyone else in the whole wide world I can see you mentioned small costs. Not because of the users. Costs that would be there whatever you do to avoid cheating. On what grounds do you state that there are nothing like that with Saints Row The Third? However, you know what. Don't answer that. Boycott the game and hate THQ all you want for wanting to earn money. In the meantime I will be happy playing Saints Row The Third both offline and online and not caring about you or anyone else who hates it for using online passes.

Sheesh, man, do you speak English? Yes, I've been constantly mentioning small costs. I've also been explaining that the costs are incurred by the users, and the publishers have absolutely nothing to do with it. I wasn't bragging about superior knowledge, either; I was establishing credentials. The only credentials you've established so far are that you played a cracked version of Counterstrike and didn't understand how the crack worked. Oh, and funny thing about Saints Row the Third: It's a console game. Console games don't have anti-cheat, so there's no licensing fees involved there. Even if there were, it's not like it's a monthly fee; it's licensed the way, say, the Havok Physics engine is. Punkbuster and VAC are maintained by their respective owners in order to keep getting people to use them.

Funny thing you should mention it. Console games do sometimes have protection against cheats. Also Saints Row The Third is released on PC. Now go back to boycotting and hating this game. I will still love it even though you hate it because a small part that probably wont alter your experience of the game by much. Will you stop bothering me if I say everything you ever said about everything is completely correct.

Online passes is the work of the devil.
The publishers are violating a law, because all laws say you are not allowed to protect your goods in any way.
Publishers and developers do not deserve to earn money, they should in fact make all games free and just be happy that their fans get filled with joy from playing them.

About the anti-cheat: the people with the constant costs from it are the people who provide the service, not the people who make the game, and they do not charge a constant fee; they make enough money from people making new games that it's unnecessary. Even when they eventually stop providing updates, they keep the servers running, because it's so bloody cheap that keeping the customers happy makes them more money than keeping the server running costs them. There are literally 10+ year old games out there that still have functioning Punkbuster support; do you really think the companies that made those games are paying Punkbuster for support on that?

As for the rest: look, it's called the right of first sale. Once they sell it, it's not their goods anymore, it's the goods of the person who paid for it. So yes, once they've sold it, they've given up their right to earn any money on it, and should just be happy people are playing. And yes, the law does say exactly that. Quit acting like I don't know what I'm talking about, and look in the mirror.

 

[pope_of_larry]

This seems fair. Game servers aren't free, you know. Don't companies have a right to ensure that someone who hasn't paid them for the game isn't wasting their money? It'd be an outrage if second owners were locked out from a game's content completely, but as it stands we're just talking about the multiplayer here.

The would make sense if the first user was still on the server the slot in the server was paid for by the first buyer then he sold his slot to who got it next (game store or a friend) and they should be able to play the game with the server slot that was paid for when the first person got the game.

Except you're not paying for a slot. You're paying for access to their servers, and that access is nontransferable.

Online access is not a part of the game anymore, it's a completely separate service. And like the majority of services, you have to pay to access it, and you can't just give your right to use the service to someone else.

I was taking about the way it should work... logically

 

[Yopaz]

They actually do just that, though: do some research into how these systems work, some real research, not just listening to marketing buzz about Project $10. You'll wind up shocked and just as heavily against it as I am.

No i won't. Because you totally ignored my point. The viability (or lack thereof) of a user operated infrastructure, is entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Namely, if you want to play on THQ's servers than they have every right to expect payment for their investment. If you feel that paying them is somehow 'wrong' you're completely free to not use their service. Thats called capitalism too.

Then I guess you get to live in ignorance of the fact that THQ is not hosting servers, and it is, in fact, a user hosted network.

Servers don't create and maintain themselves, no. But the publishers don't have to bother with it. In games with dedicated servers, the gamers host their own servers -- they usually pay for them with donations from server regulars. In the case of matchmaking, there's one central server that handles a tiny amount of data (it literally does nothing but keep track of player stats; things like how many times you've prestiged in a CoD game) and the individual players handle the rest through a peer to peer network. Even then, the bandwidth used by a game is tiny; WoW players cost Blizzard less than a dollar a month a piece, and they're ridiculously hard on the servers. For the average FPS, we're talking kilobytes of data in an average play session, maybe upgraded to megabytes if voice chat is being carried too. That costs next to nothing; the only reason the servers are as expensive as they are is because most groups just rent them from a third party. A lot of older games (with lower system requirements for the server) that still have dedicated servers are hosted on an old linux box in some guys garage, using his home internet connection. The whole "servers are expensive" deal is a lie to get consumers on the publisher's side; gamers, having a history of gullibility in this area, fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Edit: and to emphasisze, the servers for WoW are hosted by Blizzard. The servers for nearly all FPS's (Planetside and Quake Live being the only exceptions I can think of -- and surprise surprise, the former is on a subscription based model just like WoW, while the latter is free to the user, with ads and premium accounts (which get rid of the ads and let you host your own servers) are hosted by the users, who pay for everything.

Player hosted servers are great, but the idea that they can serve as the whole backbone for a modern AAA game is ridiculous. Gamers are a generally a tech savy bunch, but i very much doubt there are enough out there with the resources and know-how to run enough servers to support millions of users; to say nothing of how many of such people who are willing.

I never claimed that hosting game servers was a crippling expense on gaming companies. I realize that its a relatively cheap operation relative to each individual user. Thats irrelevant. They are providing a service, and can reasonably expect to be compensated for their efforts. It's called capitalism.

They actually do just that, though: do some research into how these systems work, some real research, not just listening to marketing buzz about Project $10. You'll wind up shocked and just as heavily against it as I am.

Oh no, I have to pay the developers money to get access to all their product.

Whatever shall I do.

Woe is me.

*insert more sarcasm here*

Hey, if you want to promote anti-consumer policies, go for it.

How is it anti-consumer exactly?

I will buy the game new. Therefore I get the code, and the devs get my money.

Gamers today are self entitled.

Oh so I'm not entitled to multiplayer on a game I've bought? Buying it used is a punishable offence, is it?

If you pay the full price you get the full game. It's not that complicated.

If you legally purchase the game, no matter what the price agreed upon, you get the full game. It's not that complicated.

And it's legal for the publisher to make online passes. Do you got a point there?

Yes, that people with large amounts of money can pay lawyers to either find or create a loophole that circumvents consumer rights. We should be outraged that they did this and trying to get a law passed that patches the hole, not going "thank you, sir, may I have another?"

Spoiler: this videoclip shows the reaction of the average gamer to the excesses of the industry

Only problem is, very, very few of them are even trying to get into the "fraternity," which in this metaphor is the industry, so sitting there and asking for more does absolutely nothing positive.

Edit: By the way, in case anyone has a lacking movie education and doesn't know what the clip is from, it's from National Lampoon's Animal House, not some creepy porno.

It's not a loophole at all. Please if you want to use the law to support your whining over the fact that they want money to cover server costs please for the love of god learn the law first.

Call it what you want; it goes completely against the spirit of the law, but follows the letter of the law. To me, that is the definition of a loophole. The biggest mistake consumers ever made was accepting the first EULA, because our rights have been on a downward slope ever since. They aren't licensing the games to us, but because they have a piece of paper that claims they are, they can get away with it. Thing is, those don't even fly in the courts of most countries; in the EU, they're explicitly invalid, and even in the US, their legal status is undecided. It's going to take a ruling by the Supreme Court to decide it, and it will probably be a 5-4 decision, but there's a good chance any EULA which actually made it that far would be struck down.

So World of Warcraft is the biggest lawbreaker of all the game industry by this logic? Not only do we have to pay for the game once. We have to register an account, then we have to pay to maintain their</b servers? It costs money to run servers, thus it's not unfair if we have to pay for it.

No, World of Warcraft is and always has been a service, not a product. The purchase price doesn't pay for the disc so much as the initial 15 days or whatever it is of service. After that, you pay $15 a month. Heck, most of the game isn't even on the disc; it's server side, not client side. With these other games, the online part is hosted by the user, using code that is on the disc -- and therefore part of the sale. Comparing WoW's business model to what's going on here is like comparing the fees on Cable or Satellite Radio to a physical movie or CD.

Edit: And yes, you read that right. The "server costs" are entirely footed by the players; the game company has jack squat to do with it. WoW uses a different system, where the servers are entirely hosted by Blizzard, and therefore have to be paid for on an ongoing basis. Even then, they way overcharge for it; each user incurs a cost on the order of pennies every month, but they each pay out $15. No wonder Blizzard is such a successful corporation...

Yeah, the difference is that you pay to use the servers one time, rather than once a month. Just because there's no content on the servers they cost money to maintain. We pay once, they pay until they decide the servers are dead and not worth keeping up anymore. So they are selling both a game and a service. The game can be played without the service so what are you complaining about?

Edit: even when you're hosting a server you connect through a network that connects you to those you are playing with. It might not be a massive cost for each player, but there is a cost involved. Let me add that you should learn how technology work while you're digging into the laws.

Read my post above this one, bro. You're the one who is showing ignorance here, not me. I've been gaming online since 2002, and have been an active member of multiple server communities. I know how this crap works.

Edit: also, if you're not getting it, the "network" you connect to when the servers are user hosted (and almost all of them are; the few that aren't are just kind of seed servers that are only left up until the community takes off on its own, and matchmaking games don't even go that far) is called "the internet," and you pay your ISP for access to it, not the game company, who has absolutely nothing to do with it. The only cost they have is the stats server, which is such a negligible cost that they may as well be complaining that each new player isn't directly contributing to the cost of heating their offices (in fact, more so, because the server costs way, way less), and tacking a fee on for the purpose.

Wow, you've been playing online since 2002? Then you must clearly know everything about everything. Now if you didn't get it, I was now using sarcasm.

Back in high school we used to play CS over LAN, but we had to dodge Steam because the school network blocked it. What we did was that we cracked the game so it could start without Steam and then we could play LAN. However when I got home and wanted to play online I could not connect to any servers without Steam, and no-one not on the same network could connect to my servers. Why is that? Because internet connection alone is not enough. You can't google your way into a server. Matchmaking works in a way to track down fitting servers based on your demands for you. You connect through a network and while the cost might be minimal, there is a small cost. It's like saying you should not be punished for shoplifting something cheap. The store is losing almost nothing on you doing it.

The internet alone /is/ enough when dedicated servers are involved. The client connects to the server through the internet. Your cracked version of counterstrike was set up to only go through a local network (LAN: Local Area Network), and therefore couldn't connect to any internet based servers. Incidentally, Steam is only involved in Counterstrike as far as launching the game; some of the servers are connected to VAC, valve's anti-cheat service, but that connection is from the game server to the VAC server; the costs involved there, which are even lower than those involved with a game server, aren't directly related to anything done by the users -- and besides, Valve is the only game company that uses their own anti-cheat service. The rest of them either pay to use Punkbuster or pay valve to use VAC in their games -- which is how Valve pays for it. The bill is not footed by the users. Anyway, there are two checks you would have to get through to play a cracked copy of Counterstrike online. The first is getting around the connection to Steam, which you did. The second is connecting to a server which is not VAC secured, which do, in fact, exist. It's not the network's fault if you didn't know enough to do the second part. If you couldn't see the servers at all, it's because whoever cracked it didn't do a very good job, and they somehow disabled internet connections -- which would be silly, because Counterstrike has built in LAN support, so it's not like they would have needed to hack it in and replace the internet functionality with it.

As for matchmaking: it's a peer to peer network. It basically works like bit torrent. This is less like arguing that shoplifting costs Gamestop very little per person, and more like refusing to do business with a store that charges you a fee for enjoying the air conditioning on top of whatever it is you actually buy -- and that's assuming there's any costs involved for the company. The reality is that it's more like a store charging you for the air conditioning you have in your own house, or in the cases of dedicated servers that you play on but don't personally own, it's like going on a beer run for a party at a friend's place, and having them tack on a fee for using your friend's refrigerator to store the beer, even though they have nothing to do with that particular fridge.

And yeah, I've been playing online since 2002. That in itself isn't enough to show that I know what I'm doing, but the fact stated in the same sentence which claims says I've been an active member of multiple server communities (read: the people who use and, for a small percentage of them, pay for the servers) should show that I have some inkling of where the costs go. The fact that you apparently didn't understand what I meant by that shows that it's not me who is lacking information here.

Now if we remove all of this post's bragging about your obviously superior skills to anyone else in the whole wide world I can see you mentioned small costs. Not because of the users. Costs that would be there whatever you do to avoid cheating. On what grounds do you state that there are nothing like that with Saints Row The Third? However, you know what. Don't answer that. Boycott the game and hate THQ all you want for wanting to earn money. In the meantime I will be happy playing Saints Row The Third both offline and online and not caring about you or anyone else who hates it for using online passes.

Sheesh, man, do you speak English? Yes, I've been constantly mentioning small costs. I've also been explaining that the costs are incurred by the users, and the publishers have absolutely nothing to do with it. I wasn't bragging about superior knowledge, either; I was establishing credentials. The only credentials you've established so far are that you played a cracked version of Counterstrike and didn't understand how the crack worked. Oh, and funny thing about Saints Row the Third: It's a console game. Console games don't have anti-cheat, so there's no licensing fees involved there. Even if there were, it's not like it's a monthly fee; it's licensed the way, say, the Havok Physics engine is. Punkbuster and VAC are maintained by their respective owners in order to keep getting people to use them.

Funny thing you should mention it. Console games do sometimes have protection against cheats. Also Saints Row The Third is released on PC. Now go back to boycotting and hating this game. I will still love it even though you hate it because a small part that probably wont alter your experience of the game by much. Will you stop bothering me if I say everything you ever said about everything is completely correct.

Online passes is the work of the devil.
The publishers are violating a law, because all laws say you are not allowed to protect your goods in any way.
Publishers and developers do not deserve to earn money, they should in fact make all games free and just be happy that their fans get filled with joy from playing them.

About the anti-cheat: the people with the constant costs from it are the people who provide the service, not the people who make the game, and they do not charge a constant fee; they make enough money from people making new games that it's unnecessary. Even when they eventually stop providing updates, they keep the servers running, because it's so bloody cheap that keeping the customers happy makes them more money than keeping the server running costs them. There are literally 10+ year old games out there that still have functioning Punkbuster support; do you really think the companies that made those games are paying Punkbuster for support on that?

As for the rest: look, it's called the right of first sale. Once they sell it, it's not their goods anymore, it's the goods of the person who paid for it. So yes, once they've sold it, they've given up their right to earn any money on it, and should just be happy people are playing. And yes, the law does say exactly that. Quit acting like I don't know what I'm talking about, and look in the mirror.

Yeah, you are right. The fact that it doesn't require a lot of money to have anti cheating running means that it's completely free. It does mean that THQ never has to pay a dime for it. Cause small costs don't exist.

However I would like you to quote exactly where in the law it says it's illegal for a company to protect their intellectual property. Cause ya know, hat's what games are so in a way a game still belongs to the publisher after it's been sold. Now quote me that exact part or I will ignore your next post cause you're clearly taking this out of your ass just because the thought of supporting the company who made the game clearly disgusts you.

Boycott the game if you hate it for giving a little extra to paying customers. Really nothing good comes from whining about this. Most of those who scream boycott buys it anyway. If you're so appalled to pay the full price you're most likely not supporting the publisher by buying it new anyway. Just calm down and say you'll miss this title if you really hate it.

 

[triggrhappy94]

God dammit!!!!
I already pre-ordered this game, but I hate, I HATE this trend.
No one knows how to do it right! If you're going to exclude content then you have to lower the initail price. (See Extra Credit)

 

[direkiller]

Oh so I'm not entitled to multiplayer on a game I've bought? Buying it used is a punishable offence, is it?

Well, looks like that's the last I buy from them. But I could have told you they were doing this with some games last year.

Gamers today are self entitled.

Yeah, how dare gamers want the right to a second-hand market? It's not like it has a right to exist....

OH WAIT, IT TOTALLY DOES.

Maybe you should look up "entitled," because the way you're using it, it applies more to the companies who are arguing they should get bonus money for used titles. They're not entitled to that. Sorry.

I don't agree that charging extra for coop on second hand copies is the best idea, but I also don't agree that devs should get no money for their games.

they already have money from when the game was bought new

if i buy the game new and keep it forever
but my buddy buys new sells it back and the next guy keeps it forever the dev still makes the same amount of money

Second hand market is beneficial to them weather they see it or not. You can look to the PC for a place that's devoid of a 2nd hand market but somehow still manages to sell less copys then the consoles that do have a second hand market(even if you take into account pirated copys as a sale its still lower).

Steam remedied that issue. The only reason PC sells less is because of retail. PC games have switched to digital long ago, and now PC is much healthier than console gaming right now.

The second hand market is a symptom of bad business practices, a monopoly, a symptom that causes a cascade effect that will lead to the collapse of the entire market. The only reason used game sales exist is because console gaming is outpacing its market. Its a growing money pit, one that is making even the biggest of the big sweat. Eventually the greed will overtake the companies, leading to a collapse as it falls under its own weight.

Steam doesn't sell anywhere near the copies retail stores do(curtly Digital Distubition makes up about 20-23% of sales steam is roughly 70% of the DD market share)
and the PC for AAA titles dose not sell anywhere near the copies that consoles have(there's a reason you see them designing games for consoles and porting it over to the PC).

I'm not saying PC gaming is going the way of the dodo I'm just saying it was hurt by actively crushing a second hand market. It makes consumers less likely to buy a game as they have no way of getting even part of the money back. also when you sell something to a store you tend to buy another game(possibly new).

PC gaming never needed a second hand market. Unlike its console cousins, there is no cartel of big dogs raising the prices. This is the main reason the second hand market exists. The price is outpacing the market, and now there is no escape.

I even wrote an article with some source links couple months ago. Its a little outdated as its missing some newer developments, but its still good:

Spoiler: old article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Read up on it. Source? look around you. Consoles are fundamentally flawed in the idea. Sony, and the xbox are choking financially (basically they worked themselves into a corner). Look at how the generation of these consoles were lengthened due to high production costs of unleashing a new console. What does this mean? They need to adopt more PC ideas to increase longevity like selling upgrades, and other attachments. The high cost, and longer generation will spell out the death of consoles on the loss leader method of business. The death of consoles isn't by lack of players, its choking on costs. If selling consoles themselves can't make a profit they rely on games. On the developer's side however its absolute hell. Console tax, second hand market, and high development costs on top of that. If you want I can get the statistics to show the drop of the number of console games from the last generation to this one.

Here is the graph of games courtesy of Metacritic's game database.
Sixth Generation (1999-2006):
Ps2: 792 (out of 1609)
Xbox: 471 (out of 856)
Gamecube: 263 (out of 502)
Total Games: 2967.
Total games over 70%: 1526.

Seventh Generation (2005-present):
Ps3: 341 (out of 579)
Xbox 360: 479 (out of 924)
Wii: 242 (out of 649)
Total Games: 2152.
Total games over 70%: 1062.

See this graph? We are in year 6 of the console generation. The time frame for the last generation was 7 years, and yet the current generation is off by 856 games. Now you could say "higher complexity" of games, and that is the problem. You see when the Xbox and PS3 were first released they were sold at a loss, relying on console games to make up the difference. The Nintendo's wii however was the only console making a profit at that time. The reason? The Wii was cheaper to make, and has been known to be less advanced than its cousins. In short, the new tech doesn't fit into a small box like it used to. Standardization does not work anymore. The tech gets more complex, the cost becomes higher, and the profits decrease. You could say "oh but the console makes more money" but it isn't that way in the eyes of Activision, who makes 70% of their money from the PC, and portable PCs. Keep in mind this is the same "PC hating publisher" that was responsible for modern Warfare 2.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/148982/xbox_delivers_a_profit.html
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/01/forbes-nintendo-making-6-profit-on-every-wii-sold/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.203926-Kotick-Only-30-of-Activisions-Profits-Come-from-Consoles

Basically, the profits are being drained by many factors including manufacturing, tech level, mounting development costs, etc. Want a "source" on the mounting development costs too?

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/ubisoft-development-costs-to-double-next-gen
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.52799-News-Report-Says-Rising-Development-Costs-A-Nightmare
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9823945-7.html?tag=mncol;title
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/04/more-wii-games-from-ea-thanks-to-low-development-costs/
http://www.nowgamer.com/news/4226/thq-studio-dev-costs-biggest-industry-issue

This isn't some prediction out of hate, it?s a prediction using the data available. It?s not due to the lack of players as there are plenty, but it?s the cost that goes into the consoles that are beginning to take their toll. Consoles are not sustainable in their current business model and if continued it will mean the death of the console entirely, especially now that the PC and the casual market (much like the wii) have shown to be very profitable with less risk. You have to remember businesses don't make games as a fun hobby, they make them to make money. If another method proves more profitable and safe, then businesses will change sides without a second thought. Businesses have no "brand loyalty" to a platform, nor do they stay in one sector for long. The dynamics of the economy doesn't stay still. It?s a cycle, businesses crowd in one newly found market until it? no longer worth it and move on which causes an economic crash. Sure there will be businesses to pick up the slack due to the newfound vacancy of the market but it?s not the same as the clamoring before the economic crash.

Selling more =/= health. Its the profits that determine health. Console gaming may sell more, but the market is in declining health. The casual markets, and PC gaming however have never been better. It never needed a second hand market, it never had one in the first place. There was no reason to have one.

you have some good points(first person to actually have something to back there augment rather then towing the line). Unless im missing something though it just shows less games are being made and assumes consoles are dieing. The much more likely scenario is less games are being made on the AAA level because of the current economic times.
Sony and Microsoft are most likely going to be changing there models for the next generation(2 generations top) of consoles(even more so as we get closer to the graphics platu) as the Wii kicked the crap out of them sales wise and profits wise.

Also your actvtion statistic has causal games and games not on the PC and consoles in it (its like comparing apples to oj there entirely diffident markets and demographics compared to who AAA titles for PC and consoles are made for).

currently consoles still generate more income then PC on the AAA level even if you take piracy as 1 to 1 sales figures(its why you see console to PC ports rather then the outer way around). You just tend to sell less equivalent games on the PC then you do for the console.

From this you can draw a few conclusions
1. Something makes more people buy on consoles
2. Even with piracy consoles are still more popular
3. Developers are still willing to produce for consoles first despite added cost and a used game market

The two things that are diffident when comparing PC to consoles is
the ability to plug and play provided you have the console
and used games market

so eater the plug and play factor causes people to buy more new games despite the used game market, or the Used games for store credit helps drives sales of new games along with the ability to play provided you have a console. I'm inclined to believe the latter as i have seen people do it repeatedly.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

They actually do just that, though: do some research into how these systems work, some real research, not just listening to marketing buzz about Project $10. You'll wind up shocked and just as heavily against it as I am.

No i won't. Because you totally ignored my point. The viability (or lack thereof) of a user operated infrastructure, is entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Namely, if you want to play on THQ's servers than they have every right to expect payment for their investment. If you feel that paying them is somehow 'wrong' you're completely free to not use their service. Thats called capitalism too.

Then I guess you get to live in ignorance of the fact that THQ is not hosting servers, and it is, in fact, a user hosted network.

Servers don't create and maintain themselves, no. But the publishers don't have to bother with it. In games with dedicated servers, the gamers host their own servers -- they usually pay for them with donations from server regulars. In the case of matchmaking, there's one central server that handles a tiny amount of data (it literally does nothing but keep track of player stats; things like how many times you've prestiged in a CoD game) and the individual players handle the rest through a peer to peer network. Even then, the bandwidth used by a game is tiny; WoW players cost Blizzard less than a dollar a month a piece, and they're ridiculously hard on the servers. For the average FPS, we're talking kilobytes of data in an average play session, maybe upgraded to megabytes if voice chat is being carried too. That costs next to nothing; the only reason the servers are as expensive as they are is because most groups just rent them from a third party. A lot of older games (with lower system requirements for the server) that still have dedicated servers are hosted on an old linux box in some guys garage, using his home internet connection. The whole "servers are expensive" deal is a lie to get consumers on the publisher's side; gamers, having a history of gullibility in this area, fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Edit: and to emphasisze, the servers for WoW are hosted by Blizzard. The servers for nearly all FPS's (Planetside and Quake Live being the only exceptions I can think of -- and surprise surprise, the former is on a subscription based model just like WoW, while the latter is free to the user, with ads and premium accounts (which get rid of the ads and let you host your own servers) are hosted by the users, who pay for everything.

Player hosted servers are great, but the idea that they can serve as the whole backbone for a modern AAA game is ridiculous. Gamers are a generally a tech savy bunch, but i very much doubt there are enough out there with the resources and know-how to run enough servers to support millions of users; to say nothing of how many of such people who are willing.

I never claimed that hosting game servers was a crippling expense on gaming companies. I realize that its a relatively cheap operation relative to each individual user. Thats irrelevant. They are providing a service, and can reasonably expect to be compensated for their efforts. It's called capitalism.

They actually do just that, though: do some research into how these systems work, some real research, not just listening to marketing buzz about Project $10. You'll wind up shocked and just as heavily against it as I am.

Oh no, I have to pay the developers money to get access to all their product.

Whatever shall I do.

Woe is me.

*insert more sarcasm here*

Hey, if you want to promote anti-consumer policies, go for it.

How is it anti-consumer exactly?

I will buy the game new. Therefore I get the code, and the devs get my money.

Gamers today are self entitled.

Oh so I'm not entitled to multiplayer on a game I've bought? Buying it used is a punishable offence, is it?

If you pay the full price you get the full game. It's not that complicated.

If you legally purchase the game, no matter what the price agreed upon, you get the full game. It's not that complicated.

And it's legal for the publisher to make online passes. Do you got a point there?

Yes, that people with large amounts of money can pay lawyers to either find or create a loophole that circumvents consumer rights. We should be outraged that they did this and trying to get a law passed that patches the hole, not going "thank you, sir, may I have another?"

Spoiler: this videoclip shows the reaction of the average gamer to the excesses of the industry

Only problem is, very, very few of them are even trying to get into the "fraternity," which in this metaphor is the industry, so sitting there and asking for more does absolutely nothing positive.

Edit: By the way, in case anyone has a lacking movie education and doesn't know what the clip is from, it's from National Lampoon's Animal House, not some creepy porno.

It's not a loophole at all. Please if you want to use the law to support your whining over the fact that they want money to cover server costs please for the love of god learn the law first.

Call it what you want; it goes completely against the spirit of the law, but follows the letter of the law. To me, that is the definition of a loophole. The biggest mistake consumers ever made was accepting the first EULA, because our rights have been on a downward slope ever since. They aren't licensing the games to us, but because they have a piece of paper that claims they are, they can get away with it. Thing is, those don't even fly in the courts of most countries; in the EU, they're explicitly invalid, and even in the US, their legal status is undecided. It's going to take a ruling by the Supreme Court to decide it, and it will probably be a 5-4 decision, but there's a good chance any EULA which actually made it that far would be struck down.

So World of Warcraft is the biggest lawbreaker of all the game industry by this logic? Not only do we have to pay for the game once. We have to register an account, then we have to pay to maintain their</b servers? It costs money to run servers, thus it's not unfair if we have to pay for it.

No, World of Warcraft is and always has been a service, not a product. The purchase price doesn't pay for the disc so much as the initial 15 days or whatever it is of service. After that, you pay $15 a month. Heck, most of the game isn't even on the disc; it's server side, not client side. With these other games, the online part is hosted by the user, using code that is on the disc -- and therefore part of the sale. Comparing WoW's business model to what's going on here is like comparing the fees on Cable or Satellite Radio to a physical movie or CD.

Edit: And yes, you read that right. The "server costs" are entirely footed by the players; the game company has jack squat to do with it. WoW uses a different system, where the servers are entirely hosted by Blizzard, and therefore have to be paid for on an ongoing basis. Even then, they way overcharge for it; each user incurs a cost on the order of pennies every month, but they each pay out $15. No wonder Blizzard is such a successful corporation...

Yeah, the difference is that you pay to use the servers one time, rather than once a month. Just because there's no content on the servers they cost money to maintain. We pay once, they pay until they decide the servers are dead and not worth keeping up anymore. So they are selling both a game and a service. The game can be played without the service so what are you complaining about?

Edit: even when you're hosting a server you connect through a network that connects you to those you are playing with. It might not be a massive cost for each player, but there is a cost involved. Let me add that you should learn how technology work while you're digging into the laws.

Read my post above this one, bro. You're the one who is showing ignorance here, not me. I've been gaming online since 2002, and have been an active member of multiple server communities. I know how this crap works.

Edit: also, if you're not getting it, the "network" you connect to when the servers are user hosted (and almost all of them are; the few that aren't are just kind of seed servers that are only left up until the community takes off on its own, and matchmaking games don't even go that far) is called "the internet," and you pay your ISP for access to it, not the game company, who has absolutely nothing to do with it. The only cost they have is the stats server, which is such a negligible cost that they may as well be complaining that each new player isn't directly contributing to the cost of heating their offices (in fact, more so, because the server costs way, way less), and tacking a fee on for the purpose.

Wow, you've been playing online since 2002? Then you must clearly know everything about everything. Now if you didn't get it, I was now using sarcasm.

Back in high school we used to play CS over LAN, but we had to dodge Steam because the school network blocked it. What we did was that we cracked the game so it could start without Steam and then we could play LAN. However when I got home and wanted to play online I could not connect to any servers without Steam, and no-one not on the same network could connect to my servers. Why is that? Because internet connection alone is not enough. You can't google your way into a server. Matchmaking works in a way to track down fitting servers based on your demands for you. You connect through a network and while the cost might be minimal, there is a small cost. It's like saying you should not be punished for shoplifting something cheap. The store is losing almost nothing on you doing it.

The internet alone /is/ enough when dedicated servers are involved. The client connects to the server through the internet. Your cracked version of counterstrike was set up to only go through a local network (LAN: Local Area Network), and therefore couldn't connect to any internet based servers. Incidentally, Steam is only involved in Counterstrike as far as launching the game; some of the servers are connected to VAC, valve's anti-cheat service, but that connection is from the game server to the VAC server; the costs involved there, which are even lower than those involved with a game server, aren't directly related to anything done by the users -- and besides, Valve is the only game company that uses their own anti-cheat service. The rest of them either pay to use Punkbuster or pay valve to use VAC in their games -- which is how Valve pays for it. The bill is not footed by the users. Anyway, there are two checks you would have to get through to play a cracked copy of Counterstrike online. The first is getting around the connection to Steam, which you did. The second is connecting to a server which is not VAC secured, which do, in fact, exist. It's not the network's fault if you didn't know enough to do the second part. If you couldn't see the servers at all, it's because whoever cracked it didn't do a very good job, and they somehow disabled internet connections -- which would be silly, because Counterstrike has built in LAN support, so it's not like they would have needed to hack it in and replace the internet functionality with it.

As for matchmaking: it's a peer to peer network. It basically works like bit torrent. This is less like arguing that shoplifting costs Gamestop very little per person, and more like refusing to do business with a store that charges you a fee for enjoying the air conditioning on top of whatever it is you actually buy -- and that's assuming there's any costs involved for the company. The reality is that it's more like a store charging you for the air conditioning you have in your own house, or in the cases of dedicated servers that you play on but don't personally own, it's like going on a beer run for a party at a friend's place, and having them tack on a fee for using your friend's refrigerator to store the beer, even though they have nothing to do with that particular fridge.

And yeah, I've been playing online since 2002. That in itself isn't enough to show that I know what I'm doing, but the fact stated in the same sentence which claims says I've been an active member of multiple server communities (read: the people who use and, for a small percentage of them, pay for the servers) should show that I have some inkling of where the costs go. The fact that you apparently didn't understand what I meant by that shows that it's not me who is lacking information here.

Now if we remove all of this post's bragging about your obviously superior skills to anyone else in the whole wide world I can see you mentioned small costs. Not because of the users. Costs that would be there whatever you do to avoid cheating. On what grounds do you state that there are nothing like that with Saints Row The Third? However, you know what. Don't answer that. Boycott the game and hate THQ all you want for wanting to earn money. In the meantime I will be happy playing Saints Row The Third both offline and online and not caring about you or anyone else who hates it for using online passes.

Sheesh, man, do you speak English? Yes, I've been constantly mentioning small costs. I've also been explaining that the costs are incurred by the users, and the publishers have absolutely nothing to do with it. I wasn't bragging about superior knowledge, either; I was establishing credentials. The only credentials you've established so far are that you played a cracked version of Counterstrike and didn't understand how the crack worked. Oh, and funny thing about Saints Row the Third: It's a console game. Console games don't have anti-cheat, so there's no licensing fees involved there. Even if there were, it's not like it's a monthly fee; it's licensed the way, say, the Havok Physics engine is. Punkbuster and VAC are maintained by their respective owners in order to keep getting people to use them.

Funny thing you should mention it. Console games do sometimes have protection against cheats. Also Saints Row The Third is released on PC. Now go back to boycotting and hating this game. I will still love it even though you hate it because a small part that probably wont alter your experience of the game by much. Will you stop bothering me if I say everything you ever said about everything is completely correct.

Online passes is the work of the devil.
The publishers are violating a law, because all laws say you are not allowed to protect your goods in any way.
Publishers and developers do not deserve to earn money, they should in fact make all games free and just be happy that their fans get filled with joy from playing them.

About the anti-cheat: the people with the constant costs from it are the people who provide the service, not the people who make the game, and they do not charge a constant fee; they make enough money from people making new games that it's unnecessary. Even when they eventually stop providing updates, they keep the servers running, because it's so bloody cheap that keeping the customers happy makes them more money than keeping the server running costs them. There are literally 10+ year old games out there that still have functioning Punkbuster support; do you really think the companies that made those games are paying Punkbuster for support on that?

As for the rest: look, it's called the right of first sale. Once they sell it, it's not their goods anymore, it's the goods of the person who paid for it. So yes, once they've sold it, they've given up their right to earn any money on it, and should just be happy people are playing. And yes, the law does say exactly that. Quit acting like I don't know what I'm talking about, and look in the mirror.

Yeah, you are right. The fact that it doesn't require a lot of money to have anti cheating running means that it's completely free. It does mean that THQ never has to pay a dime for it. Cause small costs don't exist.

However I would like you to quote exactly where in the law it says it's illegal for a company to protect their intellectual property. Cause ya know, hat's what games are so in a way a game still belongs to the publisher after it's been sold. Now quote me that exact part or I will ignore your next post cause you're clearly taking this out of your ass just because the thought of supporting the company who made the game clearly disgusts you.

Boycott the game if you hate it for giving a little extra to paying customers. Really nothing good comes from whining about this. Most of those who scream boycott buys it anyway. If you're so appalled to pay the full price you're most likely not supporting the publisher by buying it new anyway. Just calm down and say you'll miss this title if you really hate it.

It's a one time fee, not ongoing. It's paid for as soon as the game turns a profit, capiche? The people who have ongoing fees are the ones who license it in the first place, and they cover their operating costs by having game companies pay them that one time fee to provide the service. When there's only really two anti cheat services in town, one of which is tied to a specific platform (Steam), but nearly every online game needs some form of anti-cheat, it's actually quite easy to support a business model like that.

As for "protecting their intellectual property" copyright law already does that. EULAs are scare tactics used to claim additional rights that aren't actually part of intellectual property. The way copyright law works, individual copies can be sold, but the right to make them (or, "copyright") is not transferred simply by selling an individual copy. Games companies (and software companies in general; this goes wider than just the games industry) have been trying to take consumer rights away in the name of "protecting" their already protected copyright since at least the 1970's. So, protecting their copyright is not illegal, but this is something completely divorced from that. here's the list of rights that copyright actually confers, and here's the consumer right that these companies are trying to undermine in the name of "protecting" their copyright. It's not about protecting it; it's about extending it, to the detriment of the rights of others. Can you show me a law that makes it illegal for consumers to defend their ownership rights against the people who want to take them away? Because I just showed you a law that was explicitly put in place to prevent copyright holders from doing that.

Oh, and yes, I will be missing this title. I have yet to buy anything that uses Project $10 or a similar scheme. I'm about ready to retreat into the three decades of already released games, only doing business with indie devs, because they recognize that their customers have rights. For the rest of them? I can't condone these business practices.

Finally, I'm not merely "whining about it" on a forum. I'm debating with people who have bought into the industry lies, trying to get them to see the error of their ways. Too many gamers have a form of Stockholm syndrome when it comes to the industry; they always side with the industry, even when the industry is doing something that directly harms them. It's sickening.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Oh so I'm not entitled to multiplayer on a game I've bought? Buying it used is a punishable offence, is it?

Well, looks like that's the last I buy from them. But I could have told you they were doing this with some games last year.

Gamers today are self entitled.

Yeah, how dare gamers want the right to a second-hand market? It's not like it has a right to exist....

OH WAIT, IT TOTALLY DOES.

Maybe you should look up "entitled," because the way you're using it, it applies more to the companies who are arguing they should get bonus money for used titles. They're not entitled to that. Sorry.

I don't agree that charging extra for coop on second hand copies is the best idea, but I also don't agree that devs should get no money for their games.

they already have money from when the game was bought new

if i buy the game new and keep it forever
but my buddy buys new sells it back and the next guy keeps it forever the dev still makes the same amount of money

Second hand market is beneficial to them weather they see it or not. You can look to the PC for a place that's devoid of a 2nd hand market but somehow still manages to sell less copys then the consoles that do have a second hand market(even if you take into account pirated copys as a sale its still lower).

Steam remedied that issue. The only reason PC sells less is because of retail. PC games have switched to digital long ago, and now PC is much healthier than console gaming right now.

The second hand market is a symptom of bad business practices, a monopoly, a symptom that causes a cascade effect that will lead to the collapse of the entire market. The only reason used game sales exist is because console gaming is outpacing its market. Its a growing money pit, one that is making even the biggest of the big sweat. Eventually the greed will overtake the companies, leading to a collapse as it falls under its own weight.

Steam doesn't sell anywhere near the copies retail stores do(curtly Digital Distubition makes up about 20-23% of sales steam is roughly 70% of the DD market share)
and the PC for AAA titles dose not sell anywhere near the copies that consoles have(there's a reason you see them designing games for consoles and porting it over to the PC).

I'm not saying PC gaming is going the way of the dodo I'm just saying it was hurt by actively crushing a second hand market. It makes consumers less likely to buy a game as they have no way of getting even part of the money back. also when you sell something to a store you tend to buy another game(possibly new).

PC gaming never needed a second hand market. Unlike its console cousins, there is no cartel of big dogs raising the prices. This is the main reason the second hand market exists. The price is outpacing the market, and now there is no escape.

I even wrote an article with some source links couple months ago. Its a little outdated as its missing some newer developments, but its still good:

Spoiler: old article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Read up on it. Source? look around you. Consoles are fundamentally flawed in the idea. Sony, and the xbox are choking financially (basically they worked themselves into a corner). Look at how the generation of these consoles were lengthened due to high production costs of unleashing a new console. What does this mean? They need to adopt more PC ideas to increase longevity like selling upgrades, and other attachments. The high cost, and longer generation will spell out the death of consoles on the loss leader method of business. The death of consoles isn't by lack of players, its choking on costs. If selling consoles themselves can't make a profit they rely on games. On the developer's side however its absolute hell. Console tax, second hand market, and high development costs on top of that. If you want I can get the statistics to show the drop of the number of console games from the last generation to this one.

Here is the graph of games courtesy of Metacritic's game database.
Sixth Generation (1999-2006):
Ps2: 792 (out of 1609)
Xbox: 471 (out of 856)
Gamecube: 263 (out of 502)
Total Games: 2967.
Total games over 70%: 1526.

Seventh Generation (2005-present):
Ps3: 341 (out of 579)
Xbox 360: 479 (out of 924)
Wii: 242 (out of 649)
Total Games: 2152.
Total games over 70%: 1062.

See this graph? We are in year 6 of the console generation. The time frame for the last generation was 7 years, and yet the current generation is off by 856 games. Now you could say "higher complexity" of games, and that is the problem. You see when the Xbox and PS3 were first released they were sold at a loss, relying on console games to make up the difference. The Nintendo's wii however was the only console making a profit at that time. The reason? The Wii was cheaper to make, and has been known to be less advanced than its cousins. In short, the new tech doesn't fit into a small box like it used to. Standardization does not work anymore. The tech gets more complex, the cost becomes higher, and the profits decrease. You could say "oh but the console makes more money" but it isn't that way in the eyes of Activision, who makes 70% of their money from the PC, and portable PCs. Keep in mind this is the same "PC hating publisher" that was responsible for modern Warfare 2.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/148982/xbox_delivers_a_profit.html
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/01/forbes-nintendo-making-6-profit-on-every-wii-sold/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.203926-Kotick-Only-30-of-Activisions-Profits-Come-from-Consoles

Basically, the profits are being drained by many factors including manufacturing, tech level, mounting development costs, etc. Want a "source" on the mounting development costs too?

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/ubisoft-development-costs-to-double-next-gen
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.52799-News-Report-Says-Rising-Development-Costs-A-Nightmare
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9823945-7.html?tag=mncol;title
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/04/more-wii-games-from-ea-thanks-to-low-development-costs/
http://www.nowgamer.com/news/4226/thq-studio-dev-costs-biggest-industry-issue

This isn't some prediction out of hate, it?s a prediction using the data available. It?s not due to the lack of players as there are plenty, but it?s the cost that goes into the consoles that are beginning to take their toll. Consoles are not sustainable in their current business model and if continued it will mean the death of the console entirely, especially now that the PC and the casual market (much like the wii) have shown to be very profitable with less risk. You have to remember businesses don't make games as a fun hobby, they make them to make money. If another method proves more profitable and safe, then businesses will change sides without a second thought. Businesses have no "brand loyalty" to a platform, nor do they stay in one sector for long. The dynamics of the economy doesn't stay still. It?s a cycle, businesses crowd in one newly found market until it? no longer worth it and move on which causes an economic crash. Sure there will be businesses to pick up the slack due to the newfound vacancy of the market but it?s not the same as the clamoring before the economic crash.

Selling more =/= health. Its the profits that determine health. Console gaming may sell more, but the market is in declining health. The casual markets, and PC gaming however have never been better. It never needed a second hand market, it never had one in the first place. There was no reason to have one.

you have some good points(first person to actually have something to back there augment rather then towing the line). Unless im missing something though it just shows less games are being made and assumes consoles are dieing. The much more likely scenario is less games are being made on the AAA level because of the current economic times.
Sony and Microsoft are most likely going to be changing there models for the next generation(2 generations top) of consoles(even more so as we get closer to the graphics platu) as the Wii kicked the crap out of them sales wise and profits wise.

Also your actvtion statistic has causal games and games not on the PC and consoles in it (its like comparing apples to oj there entirely diffident markets and demographics compared to who AAA titles for PC and consoles are made for).

currently consoles still generate more income then PC on the AAA level even if you take piracy as 1 to 1 sales figures(its why you see console to PC ports rather then the outer way around). You just tend to sell less equivalent games on the PC then you do for the console.

From this you can draw a few conclusions
1. Something makes more people buy on consoles
2. Even with piracy consoles are still more popular
3. Developers are still willing to produce for consoles first despite added cost and a used game market

The two things that are diffident when comparing PC to consoles is
the ability to plug and play provided you have the console
and used games market

so eater the plug and play factor causes people to buy more new games despite the used game market, or the Used games for store credit helps drives sales of new games along with the ability to play provided you have a console. I'm inclined to believe the latter as i have seen people do it repeatedly.

I'd like to point out, the reason that's the first well sourced post is because the rest of us did the research and backed it up /months/ ago. At this point I'm only here out of stubborness. The other two posters who used to really duke it out for consumer rights have apparently given up; Soviet Heavy hasn't posted in one of these threads in ages, and I haven't seen a post from Therumancer on any subject for quite a while. If anyone cares to go through my posting history, it's full of well sourced arguments on this subject. Heck, check my very first post, which had something or other to do with the piracy debate, and took a standpoint based in consumer rights. At this point it's kind of a given that the research has been done; after a while, the knowledge kind of becomes yours, and is stored in your head, rather than externally.

Seriously, though: we've had this debate dozens of times already. I'm seeing the same arguments, but from new faces -- or in the case of this thread, people who have had accounts for a long time, but were apparently inactive when we were arguing this out last year.

Edit: Heck, even that post wasn't bringing anything new to the table. He just had an article already written up that he could easily get to to repost. My sources are scattered over quite a few threads, and it's a pain in the butt to find anything that isn't at the very start or the very end of your posting history around here.

 

[direkiller]

2. AAA games only work on consoles. Because there is little to competition outside other AAA games. A AAA game on PC would literally have thousands of games competing for it. Its unnecessary, as a PC game can have the same quality without spending 20-100 million.

The PC has a AAA demographic and company that make AAA games for it. (there is just less people buying AAA games on the PC compared to consoles)
The causal market hits an entirely diffident demographic then what consoles do with the exception of the wii. Its why you should not include it in any sales figured(the one you pointed out even stated mobile devices+ Actvition has gets money from World of Warcraft again an entirely diffident demographic/niche then Consoles).

as this was about Used game sales not OMG consoles are dieing. Id wager that used game sales are keeping the current model profitable for longer as it dose lead to more games sold overall(even more new sales due to reasons stated before). If consoles are dieing then used game sales have nothing to do with it. As rising development cost or cost of tec and R&D do not go up with the ability to sell the game used. Biteing the hand that feeds you can only lead to bad things.