Why the Xbox One Cannot Keep the Family Sharing...

[V da Mighty Taco]

As anybody who frequents any gaming news site knows by now, the Xbox One recently removed two of its most widely controversial features: the 24-hour check-in DRM, and the heavy restrictions on used games. However, they also removed what was most likely the most popular feature of said console - the whole "Family Sharing Library" system that allowed people to lend games to select friends and family members. This has understandably made quite a few people upset, especially those few who did not have a problem with the console in the first place. Once again, perfectly understandable. However, quite a few people keep recommending that Microsoft stick with the Family Sharing Library - which I'll refer to as the FSL from here on out, since I am indeed a lazy bastard - while keeping the system DRM free. To put it bluntly, that's simply not feasible and I'll explain why in a moment.

Now before I go on, I'm need to make a few things clear. First off, this is not a thread on the Xbox One as a whole, nor is it meant to be a discussion of the current console war. The point of this thread is to discuss the state of the FSL as well as the former DRM / used games restrictions and how they are connected, if at all. For that reason, I will not be giving my own personal opinion on the Xbox One as a whole, and I do ask you to do the same. Second and for the sake of argument, I'm going off of the assumption that the rumor of the FSL being little more than a glorified demo service is false, seeing as how it's still presently only a rumor from an anonymous source and should be treated as such. However, I'm also ignoring the whole "two people can play the same game at the same time", since I cannot find an official source that confirms that and thus have reason to believe that is a rumor as well. Finally (this may get just a tad bit rude *coughunderstatementcough*), I ask that anyone who uses the terms "hater", "hate train", "bandwagon", ""whiner", "entitled", or any other form of strawman / ad hominem argument in this thread to go kindly have sexual intercourse with a cactus. Logical Fallacies are not wanted here. Unless you're Mr T. He can do whatever the fuck he wants.

Back to the topic at hand, a lot of people recommend that Microsoft keeps the FSL while simultaneously keeping the DRM and used games' restrictions dead and buried. The common idea here is something like this:

- Our first person, Rachel, buys an Xbox One game.

- Rachel adds the game to her Xbox Live account and installs it onto her system.

- Rachel, while signed in to her Xbox Live ID, digitally lends said game to her friend, Raul, via the FSL.

- The game is removed / flagged from being played on Rachel's system or any other account bar Raul's. (the flagging option requiring games to have some sort of individual game ID system, so purchases of a new copy of the same game would still run)

- Raul can now play the game, once downloading and installation is complete. However, he can't lend it out to anyone.

- Raul at some point gives the game back or Rachel takes it back (we don't know exactly how this part would work). Raul's system gets the same game removal / flagging that Rachel's did earlier, but save files aren't removed.

Sounds good on paper, I admit. However, there are some very notable issues with all of this that directly involve the existence of what is essentially two copies of the game. The fact that the games get fully installed, especially during the borrowing process, means that the physical copy isn't necessary. If the system doesn't have some sort of DRM system in place, then what's to stop them from selling the physical copy of the game while simultaneously keeping their digital copy? If someone doesn't like the game or is simply done with said game, couldn't they just lend their friend a copy through the FSL while reselling the physical copy or giving that away to someone else as well? The fact that essentially two copies of the game would exist with no online check would leave a massive hole that would undoubtedly get abused, as the PS3's former 5-system-install was back in the day for all downloaded content. There's also the obvious issue of installing a digital copy of the same game onto every system that one can physically get ahold of, which would be catastrophic on game sales.

One can argue that if there was a game ID system in place, that people wouldn't be able to use Xbox Live or connect to the internet without losing any games that they have gotten rid of. First off, how would that work? If the game was sold to, say, GameStop and somebody bought the now-used game, would it prevent the new owner from playing or would it remove the game from the original owner's Xbox Live account and remove the game upon next connection to the internet? In the case of the latter, what happens if you lose your disc (a notable advantage of the whole FSL and cloud systems is the ability to play even when the disc is damaged or lost) and someone else finds it? Will the original owner lose their game? What if hackers or pirates begin using legitimate codes to either get free games or to ruin the reputation of the Xbox One (not exactly unlikely, all things considered)? Second, what's to stop people from staying offline entirely and doing the aformentioned "install a free copy onto the systems of everyone they know". It's already been proven with the Xbox 360's piracy issues and PS3's Linux that there is a sizable portion of people who will gladly stay offline if it means getting what they want. In this case, getting an infinite number of copies of any singleplayer game for all of one's family and friends for the price of one game is something I could genuinely see some people being more than willing to abuse fully. Unlike with used games in the current generation, everyone will be able to play said game at any time instead of it only being available only to whoever currently has the disc.

Now there is a very interesting and valid counterpoint to most of this, and that's this statement from Microsoft [a href="http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update"]here[/a]:

After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.

Pay particular attention to that first part there - "After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One,..." What that means exactly is uncertain and undoubtedly could use more clarification. However, it may (<- keyword there) imply that it'll actually be running a one-time authorization DRM in the same manner as Steam. Now that alone could still prove to be very controversial (if it's actually the case) after that above statement from Microsoft announcing no online requirement and no restricting used sales (which such a thing could easily hamper), even if it's still a colossal improvement over their previous policies. It would indeed provide a way to actually make this work without giving everyone the ability to sell the physical copy while keeping the digital copy or worse, as well as still giving players what is essentially an offline mode for all previously authorized gamesIn the end though, the Xbox One would still end up with an online-dependent DRM that can completely screw people without internet connections and is vulnerable to DDoS attacks or other server-side issues. I also can't help but wonder, yet again, what would happen if someone kept their Xbox One offline after installation and then resold the physical copy, which would allow them to keep and play the digital copy to their hearts extent. Since I don't think Xbox Live Gold is required for offline play on Xbox One and I assume that the free Xbox Live Silver account can be used to register a game to, someone could also loophole it buy just making a bunch of free Silver Accounts, registering a few games to each account, selling the physical copies of said games, playing away offline, and creating a new account whenever they get a few new games.

Look, I realize that the majority of people most likely won't be doing these things, but there is a sizable amount of people who will take advantage of whatever they can. As mentioned earlier, gamesharing on the PS3 actually became quite a big deal and even I took a part of it back then, because Sony made it more than possible to allow you and any four people you know all have a copy of any and all downloadable games and DLC that you own. It did get reduce to a much more reasonable two PS3s per account eventually, but the point still stands on how things like this can be exploited. Microsoft realizes how such systems can be worked around and isn't going to want to risk these very things happening, which is the very reason why they aren't going to allow something like the FSL to exist without some sort of strong DRM to protect it.

If you got some calm, civil, and maybe silly counterarguments to anything I've said, then please feel free to state them. Poking holes into my arguments helps me become less of a dumbass, which is always a good thing imho. Just please try to keep the strawmen and personal attacks out of it.

Spoiler: Please?

[/spoiler]

Also, people are fully encouraged to throw out their own ideas on how to make the FSL work while keeping the new policies on DRM and used games intact.

Completely off topic time after spending several hours typing this (I will be so pissed if I typo'd something): Where's ze Spidermod at? Haven't seen her around very much lately, or even most of the other mods for that matter; which sucks as we do have some entertaining mods and could really use more FWOP FWOP (or was it FWOOP FWOOP?) around here. Maybe I just really suck at picking threads to read?

[b]TL;DR:[/b] Family Sharing can't really be done without strong DRM, due to people who will abuse it and the install system like crazy. Also, something about cacti, mods disappearing, and Star Wars: Battlefront 2 still being awesome.

 

[Anthony Corrigan]

The whole thing was smoke and mirrors

http://www.heyuguysgaming.com/news/12507/heartbroken-xbox-one-employee-lets-rip-must-read

It was only a demo service anyway

 

[tilmoph]

I think that a time limit on how long Raoul could borrow the game, and how many times he could borrow it, would be a reasonable solution for digital loaning. In this scenario, Rachel wants to take advantage of the FSL, and chooses to upload a given game to her sharing folder. Every 24-hours, at a time of her choosing (selected when she uploads the game for sharing) she must insert a copy of that games disc, or Raoul loses access to that game, to ensure Rachel hasn't gone and sold the disc back. If Rachel wants to do away with the disc, she can opt to fully upload the game onto her machine/the cloud/ wherever Microsoft wants to store these things. However, if she does this, she loses the right to resell the game later, and cannot lend out the disc, since that disc's information is tied to her account. Alternatively, Rachel could opt not share the game digitally, and just hand the untied disc to Raoul, as per the present. By limiting the time of lending to a week to a week and a half, and limiting times he can digitally borrow it to 2 or three times or so, and requiring disc re authorization, we avoid the problem of infinite digital copies, and by allowing Rachel the option of partial upload (the games authorization info is kept on the physical disc, keeping playable in case of internet crash, but the files are available digitally for distance sharing), full upload( all data is tied to the account, the disc is no longer required as the system can check for authorization on it's own, but the disc itself is rendered effectively inert), and no upload at all (gives up digital options but retains full control of the copy of the game), we eliminate the biggest complaint against the XBox, while addressing concerns about massive number of games being loaned out forever.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

The whole thing was smoke and mirrors

http://www.heyuguysgaming.com/news/12507/heartbroken-xbox-one-employee-lets-rip-must-read

It was only a demo service anyway

I already covered that in the OP. At this stage, the whole "glorified demo" aspect of the FSL is still nothing more than a rumor from an anonymous source at Pastebin. The source there in no way either provided solid non-circumstantial evidence or confirmed that he / she was a legitimate member of the Xbox One's development, and obviously Microsoft has not made any official announcements that could confirm for certain one way or the other whether or not it's all true. Now I'm not denying that it could be true - it very well could be. However, an anonymous source from Pastebin could be absolutely anybody (could be Justin Bieber for all we know) and until there is some way to actually confirm or debunk it, it should not under any circumstances be treated as fact instead of the rumor that it is.

I think that a time limit on how long Raoul could borrow the game, and how many times he could borrow it, would be a reasonable solution for digital loaning. In this scenario, Rachel wants to take advantage of the FSL, and chooses to upload a given game to her sharing folder. Every 24-hours, at a time of her choosing (selected when she uploads the game for sharing) she must insert a copy of that games disc, or Raoul loses access to that game, to ensure Rachel hasn't gone and sold the disc back. If Rachel wants to do away with the disc, she can opt to fully upload the game onto her machine/the cloud/ wherever Microsoft wants to store these things. However, if she does this, she loses the right to resell the game later, and cannot lend out the disc, since that disc's information is tied to her account. Alternatively, Rachel could opt not share the game digitally, and just hand the untied disc to Raoul, as per the present. By limiting the time of lending to a week to a week and a half, and limiting times he can digitally borrow it to 2 or three times or so, and requiring disc re authorization, we avoid the problem of infinite digital copies, and by allowing Rachel the option of partial upload (the games authorization info is kept on the physical disc, keeping playable in case of internet crash, but the files are available digitally for distance sharing), full upload( all data is tied to the account, the disc is no longer required as the system can check for authorization on it's own, but the disc itself is rendered effectively inert), and no upload at all (gives up digital options but retains full control of the copy of the game), we eliminate the biggest complaint against the XBox, while addressing concerns about massive number of games being loaned out forever.

No offense, but your post was very hard to read and I may not have understood everything you said fully. Still, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that the original user basically needs to have an internet connection and re-authenticate the game in order for both fully installing the game onto the Xbox One as well as for the other person to keep playing the borrowed game. Not too bad of an idea on leaving offline play fully intact while allowing the FSL to survive, however it might end up being too inconvenient and may still have some issues. In particular, the thought of someone borrowing a game but suddenly not being able to play it because the of what the original owner forgot to do could be a bit frustrating.

If I can think of some more serious flaws with this, I'll just reply again and let you know, but overall not too bad of a system from what I can tell. Gonna edit the OP a bit to encourage people giving their own ideas on how this could work.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I'm not going to lie, I saw the length of your OP and didn't think I could read it all- just skimmed it. However you seem to be having the same opinion as me. Since it was only a demo service I would not use it, and I don't know anyone who has anyone else in their family that games save a brother or sister, and that's using the same console and same PSN. Also, if the save data stays in the system of the person borrowing, wouldn't that mean the system would run out of memory super fast?

 

[UnnDunn]

It doesn't matter anymore. The issue is moot. Maybe this can be revisited in 8-10 years.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Doesnt matter anymore because now you can lend games.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Unconfirmed whistle blowers aside, in what context does a full-featured sharing program (one that encourages you to pass your games around to 10 of your friends entirely online) make any sense for Microsoft or publishers? Do you think the average disc-based game is shared among 11 people right now? Why design the system from the ground up to restrict users (at the behest of publishers - MS admitted as much) only to turn around and deliver a compelling feature that flies directly in the face of your efforts to please EA, Activision, etc.?

I hate to invoke the cliched occam's razor here, but it makes far, far more sense if the family share plan was only ever going to advertise games among your social circle using heavily restricted demo versions of your games. That sort of feature actually fits with the narrative. But why allow the confusion, right? I mean if so many people are fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of the family share feature, why not clarify? Probably because MS was getting railed for every other feature of the system. They needed at least one "win", even if it was largely unspecified, nebulous, and dishonest.

There exists a combination of disc checks, online checks, and other (OPT-IN) DRM that would certainly enable something very much like the family share plan - on these *and* future consoles. They aren't going forward with the concept as envisioned by deluded Xbone supporters because that iteration never favored publishers. As outlined in the "sad MS employee" confessional, family-share makes sense for publishers, makes sense financially, and makes sense within the context of Xbone's other restrictive features and policies. It's also nothing we'll ever miss.

Edit: interesting thought experiment - I'm trying to figure out exactly how an interviewer would have to word a question that would force a Microsoft executive to reveal the true nature of the family-share plan. I mean how ridiculous would the interviewer sound if he spontaneously asked, "Are these going to be unrestricted, full versions of the game, or is this just a glorified demo system akin to what we've seen on every platform for over a decade?"... and how ridiculous would the executive's answer have to be in order not to give up the game? The precedent we're setting is terrifying; journalists are going to have to ask basic, reality-defining questions going forward.

 

[DoPo]

However, I'm also ignoring the whole "two people can play the same game at the same time", since I cannot find an official source that confirms that and thus have reason to believe that is a rumor as well.

Major Nelson in the interview with Angry Joe actually said it's not that


The library abstraction is an often used DRM feature, though, it's usually with books and sometimes music (at least I think there was one for music) but essentially, if you "check something out" it is "unavailable" until you "return it". That's how it works, more or less, so, indeed, two or more people shouldn't be able to play it at the same time.

Pay particular attention to that first part there - "After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One,..." What that means exactly is uncertain and undoubtedly could use more clarification. However, it may (<- keyword there) imply that it'll actually be running a one-time authorization DRM in the same manner as Steam.

I assumed it meant "plug in the console, then enter/register an Xbox Live ID". Or something vaguely like that. As far as I know, Xbox 360 already has a similar step, so it may be the same as before.

If you got some calm, civil, and maybe silly counterarguments to anything I've said

No, not really. I mean, you were mostly spot on with what me and my flatmate brainstormed over the thing. We discussed how it would probably have worked and how feasible it would be with the latest development of the Xbox One policy. Then when the rumour about the employee hit, we also took that into account just out of interest. You reached a similar conclusion, namely, game sharing is really unlikely to work without the online requirement.

Also, even assuming the Microsoft employee is stuff is not a rumour, the "demo sharing" is still going to function best as described - in fact, it's an ambitious project even then, but having the game as demos for a limited time is still not quite feasible without the previous restrictions - the online requirement and "only for family". It is actually reliant on those to function well. Or in other words, making any game being able to be demoed is not that good an idea - it's still quite exploitable and it wouldn't be in Microsoft's best interest to do it.

 

[UnnDunn]

Unconfirmed whistle blowers aside, in what context does a full-featured sharing program (one that encourages you to pass your games around to 10 of your friends entirely online) make any sense for Microsoft or publishers? Do you think the average disc-based game is shared among 11 people right now? Why design the system from the ground up to restrict users (at the behest of publishers - MS admitted as much) only to turn around and deliver a compelling feature that flies directly in the face of your efforts to please EA, Activision, etc.?

I hate to invoke the cliched occam's razor here, but it makes far, far more sense if the family share plan was only ever going to advertise games among your social circle using heavily restricted demo versions of your games. That sort of feature actually fits with the narrative.

If the family share feature only allowed time-limited demos, then why restrict it to only ten people? It's free marketing, right? And Microsoft are basically in love with the publishers, right? So why not allow demo-sharing with your entire friend's list? Wouldn't the publishers have loved that even more?

Hell, why bother with friends, why not just make it a standard feature? Every game on the marketplace gets a free, one-hour trial. Wouldn't that make more sense, professor? Doesn't that "fit the narrative better"? Wouldn't that please EA, Activision, etc? Wouldn't that be more in the spirit of Occam's Razor?

:|

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Hell, why bother with friends, why not just make it a standard feature? Every game on the marketplace gets a free, one-hour trial. Wouldn't that make more sense, professor? Doesn't that "fit the narrative better"? Wouldn't that please EA, Activision, etc? Wouldn't that be more in the spirit of Occam's Razor?

:|

You mean you don't think Microsoft is capable of taking something as elementary as game demos and repackaging it in a more restrictive form so they can claim to deliver an exciting new product that is, in actuality, a more limited version of something we already had?

Why limit it to 10 people? Because then you're indicating it's something special, something that needs to be somewhat exclusive, and people won't accuse you of talking up a relatively standard game demoing feature.

The "fantasy land" family-share plan, the one you believe existed, would have been great. I would have happily signed up, along with all of my friends, and taken the publishers to pound town. I would have gained untold amounts of content just for bothering to organize my friends list and our collective purchases. It would have been sweet.

All of those sentiments are exhibit A through whatever for why family-share plan wasn't going to happen the way you think.

 

[taciturnCandid]

From what I understand after further research and specualation that the family plan would be like free to play demos. You play for an hour and then it prompts you to buy. You can continue playing, but after every hour you get bugged again to buy it.

Kinda annoying and makes multiplayer impossible though.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Well its kinda hard to say whether we could have kept it or not considering we dont even know what exactly it was or how it worked like everything else it lacked clarification which suggests to me Microsoft are incompetent or that it was not as great as people were envisioning. At least I can lend games by giving them to my friend now which works fine and always has.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Major Nelson had said in his interview with Angry Joe that with the share things he could let his son know he got the new Halo game and he could "try it out."

Sounds like a demo situation to me, never-mind the fact they were always fairly vague about the details of the feature and such, you would think they would have wanted all the positives of the machine known asap. But they didn't elaborate on a lot, so I'm liable to believe it was a demo scenario.

 

[sanquin]

There was no reason to remove the family sharing feature. Not for fully digital games at least. As you can still fully download your games digitally if you choose to. So they could have easily kept family sharing in, but just for the digital games.

I read a bit of the blog in the second post, and I have to say it sounded like another marketing ploy where Microsoft is trying to put the blame on gamers for what has happened. Either that, or those developers, despite claiming to 'be for gamers', are way too disconnected from actual gamers. At which point I don't feel bad for them either. As then it's their fault for not researching into what gamers -actually- want, instead of what -they- would want as a gamer.

 

[Ron Alphafight]

It was confirmed earlier today that Family Sharing was not going to be just a demo service.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/21/on-xbox-ones-social-network-canceled-family-share-demos

I agree it could have been kept with digital downloads, and it would have been awesome, but figuring out how to do it with physical copies is a whole different thing.

 

[The_Great_Galendo]

It seems like they could still keep the family sharing idea, just make it opt-in rather than mandatory-in. You want to share games digitally? Cool, but you have to log in once every 24 hours or else the digitally loaned copies stop working. You'd have to check in once a day, and so would the friends you shared it with. It's the same system they had before, but now it's not mandatory. If it worked before, it should work now.

"Ah, but what about the used games issue?" I hear you say. "If you can sell the game, how does MS know to stop providing you access?" Well, there are at least a couple of options, and probably more that I haven't thought out. One, they could keep some vital information on the game disk itself, requiring it to play. That would be equivalent to the modern system -- you need the game disk in order to play the game (presumably in this case the friends you share with would need to be always-on while sharing so that MS could stream them the relevant data as needed). Another version would be similar: keep said vital data in a cache on the hard disk that needs to be "refreshed" after a particular period -- say 24 hours, though longer would probably be feasible -- either by connecting to the MS servers or putting in the physical copy of the game. The connection would likely be easier, but the physical method would be possible if the Internet went down. How would MS know that you hadn't sold the game? Presumably, you'd own it until someone else registered it, at which point they'd own it instead.

In the case of the latter, what happens if you lose your disc (a notable advantage of the whole FSL and cloud systems is the ability to play even when the disc is damaged or lost) and someone else finds it? Will the original owner lose their game?

With this method, you'd still keep your access if the game was damaged, destroyed, or lost, provided no one else found the game disk and registered it. If you lost the game and someone with an Xbox One found it and registered it...well, finders-keepers and all that. But that seems like a pretty corner case.

What if hackers or pirates begin using legitimate codes to either get free games or to ruin the reputation of the Xbox One (not exactly unlikely, all things considered)?

I assume you're referring to someone inputting the registration code of the game you bought into the system in order to swipe your copy of the game? This would be much less of a problem than you think. First of all, assuming you still have the game disk, there could easily be a "register with disk" option that would take priority over entering any registration codes. But even without such an option, the thief still couldn't get away with it for long. Assuming that most people would contact customer support or file a complaint or something like that, presumably setting a red flag on the offending account, how many times do you think the hacker/pirate could get away with this before MS decided he had too many flags on his account? I'm guessing three or four max. It's just not good value for a pirate to steal a few games, have them taken back after a day or two, then get his account banned. Better off trying to befriend someone who owns the games and share them legitimately.

 

[Some_weirdGuy]

Probably already been said but:
Why did they not just give people the choice of which they want to use? Like, i don't understand why that's doesn't even seem to be a consideration to them.

I think that was the biggest complaint over this in the first place, not that they had the check in, but that they *forced* people to use it, that there was no option to not use it.

Have the family sharing option(and whatever else) only available on consoles that have the 24 hour check-in stuff enabled, but make that system and it's advantages/incentives/disadvantages optional. If you disable it, then you lose the family sharing bonus, rather than just removing the entire feature set completely... i mean, they were the ones going on about it being the future, and about how they were just bad at explaining and it really was amazing and awesome and we'll totally see once we give it a try.

If it's as good as you're bragging it is then do it, let people try it, but don't *force* them into it. To quote the often shortened saying "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink, so kindly piss off microsoft we'll drink when we're good and ready to'.