Why did the sharing of digital game copies on Xbox One get removed?

[Naeras]

I'd prefer seeing the wording from the original source if that had been possible, but Xbox.com and such has, obviously, already removed the sharing aspect from its pages.

Yeah, I'd prefer that, too, considering now we're left arguing with poor proofs on both sides.

Yay, found it: http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/license

Turns out it is indeed for giving the games away, not just lending them. Woo boy was I wrong.

Thanks, good to get that clarified. It doesn't make this mess make any more sense, however. :V

 

[Zenn3k]

As of current, its been removed, but they could still do it, just make it entirely optional. Microsoft doesn't seem to realize that they can make physical and digital separately.

 

[tilmoph]

What I'm hoping is going on is Microsoft trying figure out how to do the digital sharing without the overly restrictive policies they were going to do. People wanted this feature; even people who hated every other thing about the XB1 liked the idea of digital sharing. Microsoft knows this. Right now it comes across as them having a great big sulk about their DRM policies getting shot down, and I suppose it's possible that is what's going on, but I kind of doubt it. They know digital sharing will be their single biggest selling point. a $500 cable cox isn't going to sell for crap, and they hopefully know it. And they can't compete in the gaming market against Sony since as it stands, they cost $100 more for a console, and have a higher monthly subscription fee, but don't offer anything over the PS4 to make up for the cost.

They want the digital sharing back, since it's their strongest selling point, but since their old control policies won't work in the current marketplace, they have to work out how they can keep sharing from becoming a way for 10 people to play one copy of a game without drawing fire for their policies all over again. And given that they know that people will be watching them like a hawk for any sign of slipping back into their old ways, that they've blown a lot of goodwill with possible customers, they really do have a bit of a problem on their hands. I'd feel sympathetic if they didn't bring it on themselves.

 

[Something Amyss]

Because the whole 'share games with others' was bullshit?


It wasn't a mandatory service, publishers could opt in if they chose to.

Do you think the likes of EA or Activision would be fine with people sharing one copy of a game with several people?

So...They were including it despite publisher unwillingness but removed it because...It's optional? That makes no sense. Wouldn't it being optional make it not an issue here?

 

[The White Hunter]

Because the whole 'share games with others' was bullshit?


It wasn't a mandatory service, publishers could opt in if they chose to.

Do you think the likes of EA or Activision would be fine with people sharing one copy of a game with several people?

That is true, there's alo a big problem with the digital sharing thing: if they can't check on it, you could share the same disc with like 50 people and just not sign on for six months. They basically didn;t think their stuff through.

The sharing thing could be awesome if it were mandatory and easy to do. But until they can do it without potentially screwing the consumer, fuck it.

 

[blizzaradragon]

Probably because as has been revealed by an MS employee who worked on it, the entire thing was basically a glorified demo service. A large rant was posted about it here: http://pastebin.com/TE1MWES2

Essentially, people on your family list would be able to play your games for somewhere between 15-60 minutes(likely decided by the publisher) and afterwards they would be prompted to buy the game. So if I had to guess, I'd say they realized that if people are already getting upset over the online connection and DRM, that this poison disguised as steak would get them in even more hot water. They have said they may implement the sharing for digital games in the future though, so there's that at least.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Because the whole 'share games with others' was bullshit?


It wasn't a mandatory service, publishers could opt in if they chose to.

Do you think the likes of EA or Activision would be fine with people sharing one copy of a game with several people?

So...They were including it despite publisher unwillingness but removed it because...It's optional? That makes no sense. Wouldn't it being optional make it not an issue here?

This raises some interesting points.

Whether it's legit or not, I have no idea, but it would explain why Microsoft didn't big it up as much as they could.

Edit: forgot link derp.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.819460-Poll-Heartbroken-Microsoft-Employee-Explains-How-Family-Sharing-Would-Have-Worked#19754499

 

[josemlopes]

Because it needs a system like the 24 hour check to work? It really isnt that hard to understand.

Then there is that whole thing of "they were lying", "it didnt work like that", etc... but even if they werent lying and were planning on doing like they told then they would need all those restrictions to make sure that people didnt abuse that system.

Its a messy subject that people are still not really into (me included), giving away whatever small rights we have for the game in trade of being able to share with 10 other people isnt all that worth it for me but I kind of see where they wanted to go with it.

 

[Hawk eye1466]

Because from what I saw of it, it was just a desperate justification that PR department or someone came up with that they hoped would stem the flow of people jumping ship, and when they decided to just remove the cause of all the rage they didn't have a reason to keep it. It wasn't an act of spite and I really don't think it would have been worth it.

Being able to share games digitally was interesting but it was a last ditch effort to save the console before reversing their policy and it was so not worth being treated like a criminal, not owning your own games, and it wasn't even a mandatory feature so the actual publishers would have had to give the green light. And I don't care what you say none of them would have done it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Are you sure on that? I've seen it repeated a few times, but no-one I've asked can actually provide a source. Everywhere I've looked it had said it was a core system feature.
On the "Multiple people" thing, I'd be fine if it was one-person-per-game-copy, because then I'd be able to borrow a friend's game without needing to actually see them in person.

It's due to how Copyright Law works. In order for them to enable game resale and sharing in a service-centric system, they would have to ask the Publishers to extend that right.

Now, physical game media is also sold as "license" but that's a shaky proposition to enforce because "shrink wrap licenses" aren't as likely as being upheld in court. (there are actually conflicting rulings between US courts on whether or not they are binding; which includes the right of resale)

This is a bit of an oversimplification, but that legal grey area is what allowed for Used Game sales to work on physical media, and why games on something like Steam do not. By tying games to a service, Microsoft and the AAA Publishers were getting rid of that legal limitation which they believe would force people to buy new, or if used, it would be on margins they dictate. (the user would probably get close to nothing for resale; as bad as if not worse than Gameschtoop)

So if EA didn't want you sharing or reselling their annual regurgitation of Madden on the Xbone, that's it; You cannot resell it. It's their copyright, and you just have a license. A license with whatever restrictions and allowances they dictate.

Microsoft didn't clarify this point because the law does it for them, and they were banking on the average gamer being ignorant of the law to make it work (hopefully making it work after they've already sunk 500 bucks on the system and have several new games to threaten them with loss to keep them using the system).

It was a honeypot tactic. It's dirty, and I'm glad enough people pressured Microsoft into removing it.

 

[Agayek]

Because it needs a system like the 24 hour check to work? It really isnt that hard to understand.

Then there is that whole thing of "they were lying", "it didnt work like that", etc... but even if they werent lying and were planning on doing like they told then they would need all those restrictions to make sure that people didnt abuse that system.

Its a messy subject that people are still not really into (me included), giving away whatever small rights we have for the game in trade of being able to share with 10 other people isnt all that worth it for me but I kind of see where they wanted to go with it.

Not really. The sharing, at least with how they implied it would work, doesn't require a 24 hour check at all. You connect to the internet, say you want to share a game. The game is then deactivated on your account and activated on whoever you shared it with until they "return" it. Then you reconnect and the game is then reactivated on your account. There's ways around it, but if they do it right, that would involve completely wiping the box's harddrive and making a new account, or being a fairly skilled hacker.

Then again, they never actually explained the fine details of how the sharing system was going to work, so that may well be incorrect.

OT: Personally, I think the reason they pulled the sharing feature is because they hadn't thought it through entirely, or didn't have it fully implemented, or something along those lines and decided that it wasn't worth the headache to implement it when they're already going to have to go back and revamp the entire OS of the console.

 

[josemlopes]

Because it needs a system like the 24 hour check to work? It really isnt that hard to understand.

Then there is that whole thing of "they were lying", "it didnt work like that", etc... but even if they werent lying and were planning on doing like they told then they would need all those restrictions to make sure that people didnt abuse that system.

Its a messy subject that people are still not really into (me included), giving away whatever small rights we have for the game in trade of being able to share with 10 other people isnt all that worth it for me but I kind of see where they wanted to go with it.

Not really. The sharing, at least with how they implied it would work, doesn't require a 24 hour check at all. You connect to the internet, say you want to share a game. The game is then deactivated on your account and activated on whoever you shared it with until they "return" it. Then you reconnect and the game is then reactivated on your account. There's ways around it, but if they do it right, that would involve completely wiping the box's harddrive and making a new account, or being a fairly skilled hacker.

It wasnt like that, the owner could play the game at any time and up to 1 player could play the same game at the same time.

 

[Agayek]

It wasnt like that, the owner could play the game at any time and up to 1 player could play the same game at the same time.

Not necessarily. Like I said, they never actually clarified how the sharing would happen. It may have been that way, but they never made a firm statement one way or the other how it behaved. They were certainly implying that it would be much like handing the disc to someone works nowadays, just in the digital space.

It may have been like what you're suggesting, it may have been like the pastebin thing posted this morning said, it may have been like a digital version disc lending, or it may have been something completely different. All that can really be said for sure is that they definitely wanted people to think it was the third one.

 

[Mike000]

Actually, at some point clarification of what game "sharing" was, was leaked - limited-#-of-uses, limited-time:

First is family sharing, this feature is near and dear to me and I truly felt it would have helped the industry grow and make both gamers and developers happy. The premise is simple and elegant, when you buy your games for Xbox One, you can set any of them to be part of your shared library. Anyone who you deem to be family had access to these games regardless of where they are in the world. There was never any catch to that, they didn?t have to share the same billing address or physical address it could be anyone. When your family member accesses any of your games, they?re placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs). but we had not settled on an appropriate way of handling it. One thing we knew is that we wanted the experience to be seamless for both the person sharing and the family member benefiting. There weren?t many models of this system already in the wild other than Sony?s horrendous game sharing implementation, but it was clear their approach (if one could call it that) was not the way to go. Developers complained about the lost sales and gamers complained about overbearing DRM that punished those who didn?t share that implemented by publishers to quell gamers from taking advantage of a poorly thought out system. We wanted our family sharing plan to be something that was talked about and genuinely enjoyed by the masses as a way of inciting gamers to try new games.

All the "I'd only need to buy 1/10 of the games" stuff was sheer fanboyism.

 

[DrOswald]

The game sharing was always a feature Microsoft included only to make us feel less bad about the really shitty DRM. Now that DRM has been removed they no longer feel the need to throw us a bone. Disc less play and game sharing (for both digital copies and physical copies) are still easily possible with an optional check in system, but the whole point of those features were an attempt to placate us and get us to deal with the DRM.

In other words, these were only ever on the table because Microsoft was trying to sell us something they knew we would hate.

 

[hermes]

Because that policy was not a feature, it was a patch in answer to some of the issues with the "games locked to account" and "no lending" policies. Once those policies were revisited, the patch was no longer necessary.

 

[ChampionMan]

I'm still not sure if the rant that a "Microsoft Employee" posted about the sharing is actually verifiable, but the man seemed to indicate that the whole service was just basically short demo of the game, instead of actual sharing of whole games, so without the DRM MS probably thought the service wasn't worth it.

Again, NO IDEA if the rant was actually legit, but for now I'm basing it as true.

 

[Something Amyss]

This raises some interesting points.

Well, yes, but none of them make the concept that you were stating (it was not supported by publishers, why would the publishers want this?) any more valid as far as I can see.

This seems like a veritable blowjob to publishers, restricting access to second-hand titles and making up for it with a demo service. No offense, but what am I missing here that would demonstrate how awful this would be for publishers? The Microsoft employee even goes as far as to say that no company ever actually said it, but they were aware publishers hated used games and sharing and wanted something done. It looks like this is affirming it was done with THEM in mind.

I'm sorry, I'm just not seeing it.