This is why I rail against DRM and 'Always Online'...

[Chaos]

This article summarizes my thoughts (and fears for the future of the industry) perfectly:

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/170243/When_digital_dies_where_does_that_leave_game_preservation.php


Today, I can go play Diablo 1, a game from my childhood that was released 15 years ago.  Those of you who are relatively young right now, will you be able to say the same about Diablo 3 in, say, 2025...?   :(

[Jake]

This article summarizes my thoughts (and fears for the future of the industry) perfectly:

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/170243/When_digital_dies_where_does_that_leave_game_preservation.php


Today, I can go play Diablo 1, a game from my childhood that was released 15 years ago.  Those of you who are relatively young right now, will you be able to say the same about Diablo 3 in, say, 2025...?   :(

Yes. If we still want to play Diablo 3, there will be a way. If, for some reason, Blizzard doesn't patch the game many years down the line to remove the battle.net necessity for single player, people will find a way to modify the game to take out that requirement.

[ARTgames]

*saw topic title
*looked to see if posted by chaos

Anyway yes I don't like this always online requirement stuff for single player. And I wish they had normal multilayer also if its a type of game. Had no internet for a while and played Fallout. Would be just silly if I had to have internet to play that.

[11clock]

"Oh, looks like the internet is down! Oh well, I'll play games until it comes back...ohwait..."

I agree that games shouldn't require you to be online in order to play them. One of my problems with Steam, though it does sometimes allow me to play games offline.

Not too sure about MMOs, though, the ones where you HAVE to play multiplayer.

[Chaos]

"Oh, looks like the internet is down! Oh well, I'll play games until it comes back...ohwait..."

I agree that games shouldn't require you to be online in order to play them. One of my problems with Steam, though it does sometimes allow me to play games offline.

Not too sure about MMOs, though, the ones where you HAVE to play multiplayer.

Well, yeah, with MMOs, multiplayer is a necessity.  But even then, if the companies are going to shut down an MMOs server, they should be required to release the server so that players can host their own private servers, then :T

[Lingus]

Wait, hold on, wait... Can't you still play Diablo 1 on it's outdated version of battle.net? I know I did a few years back. In fact, didn't a group of us here do that? Or was that LAN?

Either way, I agree that there will be some way to play these internet-required/always-on games in the future. Look at emulators. Consoles and console cartridges break down over time and become unusable in a lot of cases (obviously the newer games should be more durable, and some people may have kept their old console games in usable condition, but for the most part those things didn't last.) But there is still a way to play those old console games. Computer games have a lot of other issues to deal with as well. OS and driver backwards compatibility may eventually be issues that needs to be addressed. I just don't see internet requirement being a big hurdle.

[Chaos]

Yeah, see, the PROBLEM is the trend of where the industry is trying to head, with games no longer being bought and owned, but being merely 'licensed', along with the constant insistence of these companies to REMOVE all these avenues you guys keep bringing up because it might theoretically possibly prevent them from making money at some point in existence.  There's still a big grey area argument about the legality of ROMs and emulators, so you can hardly use that as an example for a solution. *I* personally don't have a problem with it, but that's not the point.

And internet requirement DOES become a big hurdle when the company decides to shut down the server the game needs to connect to.  Servers cost money, and it's hardly something you can expect to be around forever, and frankly, if you think these companies are responsible enough to patch their games to remove the internet requirement when that time comes, you're being naively optimistic.

Hell, let's take Stick Online v2 as an example.  When v3 comes out, is Meiun still going to maintain a server for v2?  IIRC, no, he isn't.  Is he going to release server code so that the players can run their own server?  IIRC, no, he isn't.  So where does that leave the people who spent years of their childhood playing Stick Online?  They're shit out of luck, and they won't get to play a piece of their gaming history ever again.

No offense intended, Meiun, but it illustrates my point perfectly.  I know it's not a huge gaming phenomenon, and I don't expect that every game ever made will be preserved, but that's not the point.  It's that, with the trends we're headed towards, and with the fact that companies are more than likely NOT going to patch their games 5 years down the line for one reason or another, we're in for a future where huge chunks of gaming history are set to be lost, never to be experienced again.


EDIT: Incidentally, Lingus, we TRIED to play on Battle.net.  It was a broken piece of shit that wouldn't work.  We could only get 2 people connected together, and the third person was either unable to connect, or could connect but could only be seen by one of the players in the game.  LAN was unplayable, due to it using the IPX protocol for LAN; everything uses TCP/IP nowadays, and IPX is no longer installed by default beyond Win XP, and flat-out doesn't exist for anything beyond Vista 32-bit.  Me, Lucifer, and a few others DID manage to finally find a solution when I found an IPX wrapper, and that was....not easy.

[Scotty]

and frankly, if you think these companies are responsible enough to patch their games to remove the internet requirement when that time comes, you're being naively optimistic.

Can't argue anything you're saying, but I can say that I'm not nearly as pessimistic about all of this, so read my response as subjective with regards to my mood and opinions pertaining to all of this, nothing factual.

Quite frankly, if I can't play a game 10 or 12 years from now, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.  Sure, it'd be a disappointment if I enjoyed it, but only until I decide to do something else, which isn't long when you can rock your ADD as well as I claim I can.  We often spend money on things that weren't intended to be dispensed after a month (arbitrary time frame), but they are, I view games the same.  Is it money down the drain?  Sure, but so is beer, smokes, gas for the trip to the store that didn't have what you were looking for; I'll get over it.  I don't get that worked up over the thought of losing a $20-$50 dollar game.  Besides, like Jake said, if it's really worth the nostalgia, chances are someone is going to take on the burden of removing the DRM or online requirements.

[ARTgames]

I don't get that worked up over the thought of losing a $20-$50 dollar game.  Besides, like Jake said, if it's really worth the nostalgia, chances are someone is going to take on the burden of removing the DRM or online requirements.

Archivist and collectors keep things of much lesser value than it was worth at the time. Its not really how much it was worth but the cultural impact it had.  And I feel like video games is quite a big part of the entertainment and technology part of are culture. Many people can relate to video games and have been effected by them. I feel like its something worth saving, and the retroactive act of hoping some one will do it after the fact seems a little subpar. But I do hope that last statement holds true. I know there are people that do goto some extremes to save these things but I don't know how many.

[Chaos]

I don't get that worked up over the thought of losing a $20-$50 dollar game.  Besides, like Jake said, if it's really worth the nostalgia, chances are someone is going to take on the burden of removing the DRM or online requirements.

Archivist and collectors keep things of much lesser value than it was worth at the time. Its not really how much it was worth but the cultural impact it had.  And I feel like video games is quite a big part of the entertainment and technology part of are culture. Many people can relate to video games and have been effected by them. I feel like its something worth saving, and the retroactive act of hoping some one will do it after the fact seems a little subpar. But I do hope that last statement holds true. I know there are people that do goto some extremes to save these things but I don't know how many.

Thanks Art, you wrote my entire post for me.  :p

As he said, it has nothing to do with wasted money, but the loss of culture.  The fact that you'd refer to games like consumables, and not like movies, books, or any other type of art, says a disturbing amount about the mindset the industry has forced upon us.   :-\

[Scotty]

I don't get that worked up over the thought of losing a $20-$50 dollar game.  Besides, like Jake said, if it's really worth the nostalgia, chances are someone is going to take on the burden of removing the DRM or online requirements.

Archivist and collectors keep things of much lesser value than it was worth at the time. Its not really how much it was worth but the cultural impact it had.  And I feel like video games is quite a big part of the entertainment and technology part of are culture. Many people can relate to video games and have been effected by them. I feel like its something worth saving, and the retroactive act of hoping some one will do it after the fact seems a little subpar. But I do hope that last statement holds true. I know there are people that do goto some extremes to save these things but I don't know how many.

Thanks Art, you wrote my entire post for me.  :p

As he said, it has nothing to do with wasted money, but the loss of culture.  The fact that you'd refer to games like consumables, and not like movies, books, or any other type of art, says a disturbing amount about the mindset the industry has forced upon us.   :-\

Maybe I didn't use the right analogies when you make me sound dismissive towards the impact that games have on societies, but my overall message remains the same.  The video game industry is continuing to improve, and I look forward to where it's going more than I do dwelling on where it's been.  I understand not everyone is going to have this mindset, and they'd like to return back to the days when games left a substantial impact, enough to warrant trying to get a glimpse of what it was like back then; heck I have said urges as well (just not as often as, say, Chaos for instance),  and maybe it's a matter of the industry's level of maturity when it comes to preservation. 

As Chaos said before, Diablo I right now is near unplayable, and necessitates many hours of hair pulling just to get a few people online.  I can't even easily go back and revisit the good ol' days of Commander Keen (yeah, remember that game?) or King's Quest without jumping through laborious hoops and often times illegal (or less than legal) methods of procurement.  All the games I came to love as a child are no longer playable.  I don't have an NES to play Dig Dug II, I don't have an SNES to play Ogre battle, and 20 years down the line when Blizzard pulls the plug on Diablo III's authentication servers, I won't be able to play that either.  I don't see the difference, thus I accept it as natural progression.

[Mr Pwnage]

I find it kind of unfair I don't get to talk with my great grandmother just because she's dead. Somebody should fix that too.  >:(

[Scotty]

I find it kind of unfair I don't get to talk with my great grandmother just because she's dead. Somebody should fix that too.  >:(

Worst.
Analogy.
Ever.

[ARTgames]

I don't have an NES to play Dig Dug II, I don't have an SNES to play Ogre battle, and 20 years down the line when Blizzard pulls the plug on Diablo III's authentication servers, I won't be able to play that either.  I don't see the difference, thus I accept it as natural progression.

I do feel your mistaken. You can still get a snes or nes and play the games if you really wanted to or just have kept them if you happen to care like Chaos does. They still work fine. The difference here is that you can't do that when the server is down. And their is nothing the user can really do about it. Which is not fun especially when the game has a single player component. (I personally wish games would also have a way to keep the multilayer working by having self hosting, but that's just a wish. :) )

Yes we do have roms and emulators (for past games) or private servers and cracks (for games of today) but I think Chaos's point is that he does not want to rely on those things if he does not need to.

Are you actually against people trying to save this type of media for future consumption or do you not mind if they do? I'm fine if you really don't care about the availability of playing these games later on but actively going against the people who do would be something that I would like for you the elaborate on. That is if you even are against this sort of thing.

I find it kind of unfair I don't get to talk with my great grandmother just because she's dead. Somebody should fix that too.  >:(

fortune tellers :P

[Scotty]

I do feel your mistaken. You can still get a snes or nes and play the games if you really wanted to or just have kept them if you happen to care like Chaos does.

The point that I was trying to make was that I would have to go through excessive amounts of effort to play the games, not that I can't.  I would have to find a console that works, a game cartridge that works, or an emulator that can run a game, whatever the case might be.  Just like how 20 years from now I'm going to have to find a game that has been cracked with online requirements removed illegally in order to play it should the servers go offline.  Either way, it's more effort than say, going to steam and 3 clicks later having the game playable.

Are you actually against people trying to save this type of media for future consumption or do you not mind if they do? I'm fine if you really don't care about the availability of playing these games later on but actively going against the people who do would be something that I would like for you the elaborate on. That is if you even are against this sort of thing.

I don't know why you got the perception that I am, this is just my standing on my ability to play games from long ago.  To answer your question plainly: no, I am not against people being able to play games from long ago, in any era.  I agree, it would be fantastic if we could preserve these games for all time, so that our great-great-great-great-great-great grandtallywackers can see what we did for fun, I just don't get worked up over the thought that someday it's going away.

Now Chaos, get your ass on the internet-required Diablo III that you bought and installed!