kohlrak: In the past hour, i read about Moonrise and Darkspore. I'm curious if anyone has a list, or wants to build a list, of games that became unplayable because of modern DRM (not because of buggy CD checks).
LootHunter: Wasn't Moonrise basically an MMO? And not even passed Early Access/Beta phase?
Actually, i don't know. If it was, then that would make sense, at which point we're just down to Darkspore, which i'm told did actually have single player.
kohlrak: That, i know. But alot of people see that as different. I'd like to focus on desktop games, for that reason.
Pheace: I get that. Just brought it up because this *is* what the next generation is growing up on, as shown by the kid example above. The worry of 'desktop' games suffering from this is an aging concept for a world that really is getting more and more used to seeing this happen on a regular basis, and we're likely to see the same thing in the long term more and more online integration being a thing.
Both for and against your argument (simultaneously, mind you), i present to you Termux. Basically, phones and tablets are mini-laptops with the OS more restricted than a laptop or desktop. It was always like this, but now with bluetooth keyboards and busybox and the like, it's just become painfully obvious enough that slowly even those who aren't coders or systems designers can see it. On the whole, mobile games are meeting much criticism, but it's empty because people keep downloading them and playing them right after criticising them. However, at the end of the day, the general population does see apps, PC games, console games, and general software all as completely separate worlds. I'm anxious for the day when they don't, but for now it's what we have to work with.
Now, if anyone else here is a coder, i'd be glad to work with you to help you wake people up, at least through android, in order to get the ball rolling. I have some ideas, but I really could use some help with this.
kohlrak: In the past hour, i read about Moonrise and Darkspore. I'm curious if anyone has a list, or wants to build a list, of games that became unplayable because of modern DRM (not because of buggy CD checks).
timppu: Do you mean unplayable in the sense that no one can play it (even a pirated version from torrentz zitez), or that legit owners can't anymore play their legit copy (without either hunting down a working crack, or replace their legit version with a pirated version)?
I'm focused on scenarios where something simply disappears from steam or origin, basically, and people with legit copies are told they're out of luck, even if it has single player elements. Particulary games that actually do work when pirated, because it proves then that shutting down the game was absolutely unnecessary as keeping the game running cost the company absolutely nothing other than sales of a sequel or something.
I can't install nor play my legit digital versions of Plants Vs Zombies and Peggle anymore. I recall either upon installation or running it for the first time, it asks me to register with a code (that I have), but the validation fails as the PopCap validation servers are now permanently offline.
I think EA is selling some versions of both games on EA Origin, but at least I couldn't redeem the codes I have there, they are not in the correct format for Origin. Not sure if the Origin versions are the exact same versions anyway.
Another somewhat similar case is... I don't recall if it was the first Rise of Nations, or the sequel Rise of Legends, or both. You can install and play both games... BUT you can't get any much-needed updates for them as the only official way to update both games is using the in-game update functionality, and the game publisher's servers have been offline for many many years already.
So you can still install and play the game(s)... but only in their original buggy format, without fixes. I recall though that one of those games had some fan-made patch where he had gathered the downloaded update files to some kind of simple installer.
Those aren't make or break, other than the mobile games, which everyone accepts to be a crooked market.
Pheace: I get that. Just brought it up because this *is* what the next generation is growing up on, as shown by the kid example above. The worry of 'desktop' games suffering from this is an aging concept for a world that really is getting more and more used to seeing this happen on a regular basis, and we're likely to see the same thing in the long term more and more online integration being a thing.
Ah yes, I should have expected you come into this discussion to preach to us that we should just accept DRM and not care if games will permanently die. You keep telling in other DRM discussions how you wouldn't care even if you lost all your Steam games, you would just buy them all over again on some other service (in case they would even be released at all in some future service).
Would you extend that "laissez-fairez I don't carez" mentality also to e.g. movies and music? You don't care even if people wouldn't be able to listen to music from the 70s or 80s anymore, unless some publisher decided to make a remake of some old song or movie? After all, there are always newer music and movies to hear/see, why should people be able to see some old "classic" movies or hear some Beatles by the original band? Or if you want to see the movie Psycho, there's always the modernized version with new actors in it.
I hope you don't mind if I call you pro-DRM, because that is what you clearly are, based on what you keep writing to GOG forums (including your "see how people complain when DRM works"-thread).
Honestly, in this case, i don't think we can say he's suggesting we just deal with it. His attitude, here at least, simply seems to be that it's becoming a thing, whether we like it or not, so we're going to have a hard time fighting it. Honestly, he's kinda right: people are getting used to this and continue to invest, anyway, then complain when it's gone, but then move on to clones. We still don't quite know how it'll be when something a bit heavier, more investing gets whacked off, like a roguelike or something where you can put alot of time investing in, only for it to go away with no hope of a replacement coming. Right now, the apps closing down are the ones that alot of people haved played and got bored of, despite investing money into them. Now a game where you spend time and actually build "skill" in, such as a fighting game or something, that tends to have a much bigger impact, but that's not really the kind of thing we see on mobile right now (i mean, we have it, but it's usually mostly DRM-free, and alot of it is also sold on GOG as well).
