Stop complaining about the loss of the shared-library feature. It was a smoke-screen.

[FieryTrainwreck]

The shared-library feature (aka the *only* good thing about the XB1 before today) is gone, and people are mad about it.

They shouldn't be. Because it was never a real thing.

Watch the language carefully. Microsoft was "enabling" publishers to provide sharing for Xbone owners. There was no mechanism or requirement compelling publishers to participate in the program. There was, of course, good reason NOT to participate: potential sales loss.

If you thought they were going to let you pass the latest and greatest 200 million dollar AAA games around to all of your friends for free, you're insane. The entire Xbone system was built from the ground up to please publishers. It makes no sense to restrict used games only to turn around and force publishers to allow up to 11 customers per unit sold. The shared-library feature was nothing more than a cozy hypothetical designed to take the sting out of all the new restrictions.

Now that Microsoft has been forced to reverse course and remove the always-online DRM and license-based schemes, there is no reason for them to continue pretending you were ever going to be able to share your entire library with all of your online friends. Funnier still, they probably predicted some people would be so far gone as to make threads lamenting the loss of a feature that publishers were never going to use in the first place. I guess that's how you lay groundwork for your next assault on the consumer.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

If you thought they were going to let you pass the latest and greatest 200 million dollar AAA games around to all of your friends for free, you're insane. The entire Xbone system was built from the ground up to please publishers. It makes no sense to restrict used games only to turn around and force publishers to allow up to 11 customers per unit sold. The shared-library feature was nothing more than a cozy hypothetical designed to take the sting out of all the new restrictions.

Funny, I said something similar in another topic, literally seconds ago. It would make zero financial sense to allow 10 (11?) people to play a game from one disc sold. That would be suicide for any company, especially considering they think a game bombs when it sells only a couple million units.

 

[Miss G.]

I hope more people who were 'affected' by this imaginary loss pay attention to this as well. If Microsoft was really all for this 'shared library' they would've made more of a big deal out of it or at least try to troll Sony back about it. As it stands, that whole thing is about as substantial as the cloud gaming; a fancy-sounding idea on paper.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

If you thought they were going to let you pass the latest and greatest 200 million dollar AAA games around to all of your friends for free, you're insane. The entire Xbone system was built from the ground up to please publishers. It makes no sense to restrict used games only to turn around and force publishers to allow up to 11 customers per unit sold. The shared-library feature was nothing more than a cozy hypothetical designed to take the sting out of all the new restrictions.

Funny, I said something similar in another topic, literally seconds ago. It would make zero financial sense to allow 10 (11?) people to play a game from one disc sold. That would be suicide for any company, especially considering they think a game bombs when it sells only a couple million units.

I made a thread before they dropped the DRM trying to help people understand that the shared-library feature was 100% optional for publishers who (conveniently) had zero reason to use it. I saw people on some forums lining up their "families" ahead of time, visions of 11 people playing all the latest games for just ~6 bucks per. It was never going to happen because it made absolutely no financial sense for publishers.

Naturally, I was given the tinfoil hat treatment.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

If you thought they were going to let you pass the latest and greatest 200 million dollar AAA games around to all of your friends for free, you're insane. The entire Xbone system was built from the ground up to please publishers. It makes no sense to restrict used games only to turn around and force publishers to allow up to 11 customers per unit sold. The shared-library feature was nothing more than a cozy hypothetical designed to take the sting out of all the new restrictions.

Funny, I said something similar in another topic, literally seconds ago. It would make zero financial sense to allow 10 (11?) people to play a game from one disc sold. That would be suicide for any company, especially considering they think a game bombs when it sells only a couple million units.

I made a thread before they dropped the DRM trying to help people understand that the shared-library feature was 100% optional for publishers who (conveniently) had zero reason to use it. I saw people on some forums lining up their "families" ahead of time, visions of 11 people playing all the latest games for just ~6 bucks per. It was never going to happen because it made absolutely no financial sense for publishers.

Naturally, I was given the tinfoil hat treatment.

Do you have the link to that thread? I'm interested in seeing the counterpoints made to defend the idea.

 

[9thRequiem]

It was never going to be 11. But there was the possibility of it being two; it said that a shared game could be played by one member of your family, then went on to say that you could always play your own games. On top of that, it'd be easy to fool - you only have to be online once a day; it can't tell what games you're playing if offline.
I looked very closely at all details of this feature, and never saw a single thing about it being up to publishers. Do you have a source?
And even if only one person could play at once, it was still an awesome feature. Having to physically give a disc over to someone takes time, and requires proximity.
It's because of the loss of this that I've cancelled my preorder.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.819133-Xbone-game-sharing-is-OPT-IN-for-publishers-This-entire-console-is-about-shifting-blame

You posted in it. Things were a little too "in between the lines", I guess. I also tried to weave in a larger commentary about how Microsoft was working in tandem with publishers to create extremely unpopular but highly beneficial policies in a fashion with shared/nebulous/undisclosed accountability.

The point was this:

Xbox One will enable new forms of access for families. Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One. Just like today, a family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friend?s house. Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games. You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.

Xbox One was going to "enable" all kinds of things, but that doesn't mean publishers were going to use them. It says right there that up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your *shared games library*. That's carefully worded on purpose; if a game doesn't qualify for your "shared games library" (because a publisher maybe decides making money is good and letting 11 people play one copy of a game with zero geographical or logistical limitations is bad), it obviously wouldn't "show up" in the list.

Now MS is playing the "blame the customer" card for removing features that were never going to pan out in the first place.

Anyone who doesn't believe this, ask yourself: why do they have to drop the family-share feature? They could still implement it for all digitally purchased games? Same goes for the whole "roaming library" bit. In fact, they could implement these features for the 360 right now if they wanted to. There's nothing preventing them from doing so. They just know there's no good reason for publishers to participate, and now that their policies are identical to Sony's there's no good reason to maintain the fantasy.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

It was never going to be 11. But there was the possibility of it being two; it said that a shared game could be played by one member of your family, then went on to say that you could always play your own games. On top of that, it'd be easy to fool - you only have to be online once a day; it can't tell what games you're playing if offline.

So it was going to be easy to fool, meaning it would be easy for a bunch of people to play one copy of games that cost crazy amounts of money to develop? And you thought this was actually going to happen?

I looked very closely at all details of this feature, and never saw a single thing about it being up to publishers. Do you have a source?

None of the details were ever finalized and the feature wasn't even going to be ready for launch, but I'd like to see any description from a qualified, official MS source that doesn't use highly versatile language. Everything I've seen says MS was going to "enable" this. There is no way they could compel publishers to participate. That doesn't qualify as fair usage in the slightest. I know I'd never agree to it if I were publishing games. It's one thing to allow sharing/trading of physical copies and another to promote the practice with a clearly outlined, highly visible, and ridiculously convenient framework.

It's because of the loss of this that I've cancelled my preorder.

I really don't think it was ever going to happen like you thought.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Oh yeah, that one. Pity it didn't get more replies, I am genuinely curious about the arguments of the defending side.

It was never going to be 11. But there was the possibility of it being two; it said that a shared game could be played by one member of your family, then went on to say that you could always play your own games.

Give your family access to your entire games library anytime, anywhere: Xbox One will enable new forms of access for families. Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One. Just like today, a family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friend?s house. Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games. You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.

Says up to ten right there, then it says that any one can play at any given time (meaning, one at a time).

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Oh yeah, that one. Pity it didn't get more replies, I am genuinely curious about the arguments of the defending side.

I think most of the counter-arguments were based in willful ignorance and wishful thinking, and now that MS has pulled the plug on the shared library feature (even for digital purchases, where it would still function exactly as it would before) there isn't much evidence suggesting it was anything more than a fantasy.

The entire Xbone ideology was pro-publisher. A feature encouraging 11 people to pay for one copy of a game is completely antithetical to that ideology. This clash made no sense whatsoever unless you realize MS wasn't going to force publishers to participate. If it was such a great idea before, why wouldn't they just do it now? Rolling back daily authentification and used-game restrictions doesn't actually require the loss of this feature.

In fact, allowing digital purchases to pass into your shared library would be a great way to get people on the digital distribution bandwagon. They'd be using a legitimate advantage to generate the change they wanted to see in the industry - without locking out the choices we already have. But that was never their intention. They were tossing us a phantom bone and hoping enough people would seize on it to overshadow all of the new restrictions. Didn't happen.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

In fact, allowing digital purchases to pass into your shared library would be a great way to get people on the digital distribution bandwagon. They'd be using a legitimate advantage to generate the change they wanted to see in the industry - without locking out the choices we already have. But that was never their intention. They were tossing us a phantom bone and hoping enough people would seize on it to overshadow all of the new restrictions. Didn't happen.

The funny thing is, apparently Steam is going to try to do exactly that, if those rumours can be trusted.

 

[The Enquirer]

You know, I never thought of this in this way. Something interesting I did read was that what was good about this, was that for the first time you could sell your digital used games and actually have a sense of ownership that comes with a physical copy.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Tell me about it.

Trying to convince others that it was a smokescreen is a pain in the arse.


http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.819422-I-am-disappointed-in-you-Microsoft#19752862

 

[hatok]

I've just been thinking about a tonne of ways this, and the no disk thing, could have still worked without the DRM
Each game could come with a one time digital downlaod code
The game could install once, the first time it is booted, and then disable the feature
They could make it so you can install the game off the disk, but occasionally need to authenticate by putting in the disk or entering a code.
The game could be shared based on your friends list, and in that vein, the game could be tied, in terms of sharing digitally, to your account. This emans you could still share a physical copy or rent one, just not share it with ten people unless you bought it first
Or hey, they could make it so ONLY these features need online authentication, not playing games period

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

I've just been thinking about a tonne of ways this, and the no disk thing, could have still worked without the DRM
Each game could come with a one time digital downlaod code
The game could install once, the first time it is booted, and then disable the feature
They could make it so you can install the game off the disk, but occasionally need to authenticate by putting in the disk or entering a code.
The game could be shared based on your friends list, and in that vein, the game could be tied, in terms of sharing digitally, to your account. This emans you could still share a physical copy or rent one, just not share it with ten people unless you bought it first
Or hey, they could make it so ONLY these features need online authentication, not playing games period

Exactly. There was nothing preventing Sony from copying the feature either. Or either company from implementing it on their existing consoles. There's no tech involved. It's all framework/software-based. They aren't going to introduce it because they know none of the publishers are going to use it. The only reason MS even conceived of it in the first place was so they could claim they were offering at least one tangible benefit with their new model. Said benefit was never going to materialize, and now that their model is once again industry-standard, there's no reason to even pretend that family-share is going to happen.

Microsoft's approach wasn't so much "educational" as revisionist. They were (and still are) constantly trying to claim some ownership of the very concept of digital distribution. Meanwhile, Steam, PSN, and XBL have all been riding that wave for several years. Any advantages we might have had with the scrapped Xbone model *could just as easily apply to the existing digital distribution platforms*.

 

[Doom972]

I agree, they were very vague about it the whole time and it seems that they were just trying to mask another restriction as a feature. People just want a new Xbox because they liked the old one and feel that they must maintain loyalty to it (or peer pressure), so they look for any excuse possible to make the Xbone look like a good idea.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Well, it was the only positive they could find in the sea of horribleness that was the XBox One, but their dedication to brand loyalty and need for Microsoft's exclusives made them see that one 'good' thing as something much more then it really was, and since they were willing to get screwed over for the XBox One, with that as their focus to justify it, when Microsoft took away all the crap including the thing they thought was sooo amazing, they actually believed they lost something good, that they lost something that would help them to hold the XBox over the PS4(Completely ignoring that Sony could have done the same thing)

I remember that anytime you argued why the XBox One was a bad system, they'd pull out that 'trade with 10 people' shit out like it made all the DRM and other problems become invalidated.

Ugh...

 

[CriticalMiss]

I hadn't actually thought about it that way. It seems like quite an obvious sham when you realise the proposed system would cut profits tenfold but somehow not destroy publishers' profits. Must have been the POWER OF THE CLOOOOOOUD!!! or something.

 

[UnnDunn]

The shared-library feature (aka the *only* good thing about the XB1 before today) is gone, and people are mad about it.

They shouldn't be. Because it was never a real thing.

Watch the language carefully. Microsoft was "enabling" publishers to provide sharing for Xbone owners. There was no mechanism or requirement compelling publishers to participate in the program. There was, of course, good reason NOT to participate: potential sales loss.

Wrong. The 10-friend sharing feature was a core part of the licensing model. It was not in the hands of publishers. The restriction was that only one of those friends could play at once; the other 9 would have to wait their turn.

This is why I am disappointed with Microsoft's decision. The vast majority of the whiners didn't actually understand what Microsoft was trying to do, or the issues involved. Ultimately, that was due to Microsoft's PR failure. But their PR apparatus had little chance to succeed, faced with the mob-like idiocy of the Internet, endlessly spouting nonsense, egged on by Sony.

And so we're faced with another 8+ years of the status-quo in game distribution. No new ideas, no innovation. In 2020, I'm still going to have to carry a case full of discs to my friend's house if I want to play them on his console. We're still going to need one copy of the game for every player in the house who wants to go head to head in different rooms. Because people didn't take the time to try to understand what Microsoft was really trying to do.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

The shared-library feature (aka the *only* good thing about the XB1 before today) is gone, and people are mad about it.

They shouldn't be. Because it was never a real thing.

Watch the language carefully. Microsoft was "enabling" publishers to provide sharing for Xbone owners. There was no mechanism or requirement compelling publishers to participate in the program. There was, of course, good reason NOT to participate: potential sales loss.

Wrong. The 10-friend sharing feature was a core part of the licensing model. It was not in the hands of publishers. The restriction was that only one of those friends could play at once; the other 9 would have to wait their turn.

There is absolutely no way publishers were going to permit you to pass your game around to 10 other people directly through XBL completely free of charge. Take any modern AAA game from this generation without a notable multiplayer component (basically anything that isn't Gears, Halo, or CoD). How many of them are appreciably longer than 8-10 hours or feature robust replayability? Next to none. All of those games are fantastic targets for premeditated "group purchases". You must have seen the threads with people locking in their "10 friends" for game-buying purposes? Folks were lining up to take maximum advantage of this feature, and that "added value" doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from publishers.

So one of two things was going to happen: either Microsoft was going to plow ahead with the family share plan and the publishers were going to "opt out" (thereby relieving any criticism leveled at the Xbone), or Microsoft was going to pull the plug on the feature (or drastically alter it) in the months following the console launch. Instead, after Sony forced them to pull a 180 on all of the features no one was asking for, they seized on the opportunity to abort the one feature people did want before anyone could figure out it wasn't remotely feasible.

I don't mean to come off hostile here, but try to think about all of this rationally. Why did the family share plan sound so good in the first place? Are visions of splitting the cost of your game purchases among 8-10 friends dancing in your head? Since when has it ever been a company's goal to make everything they sell you more affordable with no benefit to themselves? Does it seem like any of Xbone's policies, other than this one, were designed to do anything but restrict your ability to share or trade games? Why go to all of that trouble only to create this massive ideological outlier that encourages people to do what you don't want them to do?

Edit: never mind, you're drinking the kool-aid.

This is why I am disappointed with Microsoft's decision. The vast majority of the whiners didn't actually understand what Microsoft was trying to do, or the issues involved. Ultimately, that was due to Microsoft's PR failure. But their PR apparatus had little chance to succeed, faced with the mob-like idiocy of the Internet, endlessly spouting nonsense, egged on by Sony.

You're off your meds. Not only was the family share plan never finalized and due for implementation months after launch (at which point they could alter it in any fashion they desire), I still see no way they could legally force publishers to allow for free sharing of their games among pools of users. Heck, I would have jumped right on board with 10 of my friends and split up all the game buying 10 ways in a heartbeat... if I thought for even a moment that that is what was going to happen. That you continue to believe this fantasy is the height of naivety and/or willful ignorance. But hey, you're the one with the XBL avatar.

And so we're faced with another 8+ years of the status-quo in game distribution. No new ideas, no innovation.

Microsoft's "big ideas" are either a) already more than existent in the form of digital distribution platforms that have existed for damn near a decade, or b) still entirely possible without the bullshit restrictions and inconveniences they were looking to enforce.

In 2020, I'm still going to have to carry a case full of discs to my friend's house if I want to play them on his console. We're still going to need one copy of the game for every player in the house who wants to go head to head in different rooms. Because people didn't take the time to try to understand what Microsoft was really trying to do.

If Microsoft wanted to, right this very instant, they could allow you to install a game to three machines in one house using the same disc. They would simply have to require you stay connected on all three machines for the duration of your playtime with a very regular disc-check. If the disc check fails, all three machines are cut off. Totally workable.

Your "case full of discs" example is sort of ridiculous. Are you regularly carrying a bunch of games over to a friend's house? In light of this proclivity, are you for some reason not transferring these discs from their original cases into a sleeved folder? Is the act of trudging around this sleeved folder, which might weigh all of a few pounds, causing you undue physical and mental trauma? We should give up our rights as consumers so you can better handle a hypothetical that probably never fucking happens?

Honestly, with this battle seemingly over, I'm surprised you're still employed.