Games for Windows & Achievements

[Shemar]

I am generally ideologically opposed to any attempt to tie my game's serial number to an online account tied to me as a person in a non-transferrable way. That violates basic consumer rights like the first sale doctrine.

 

In addition to that I have zero interest in advertising my in-game 'achievments' to the Internet masses. Seriously people, they are just games. Nothing you do in a game can ever be described as 'achievement'. Try getting something achieved in real life. Even if I did do something in a game I considered difficult or important, it is enough for me to know I did it. I feel no need whatsoever to advertise it.

 

Finally, I consider any attempt from any service to monitor my gaming habits as a violation of my privacy.

 

To that end, I never buy games that require an online account of any type (and yes that includes all the games that require steam). I have no problem with online activations, as long as:

1. There is no limit on the number of activations or the user has the capability to deactivate and reset the counter back to zero, if there is one.

2. The activation only happens once per install and no online activity whatsoever is required (or permitted) afterwards.

 

Given that I never replay games and that I never re-sell my games and only very rarely lend them to friends/family, none of the above things I am ideologically opposed to would really be a problem for me. However I still rtefuse to support such effords to restrict my consumer rights; even ones I do not plan to use.

[Enoch]

I suggest applying the "seriously, people, they are just games" sentiment to the rest of the above post.

[AlphaPro]

Guilty until proven innocent, aren't you innovative.

 

do they have chickens in Estonia? Ive nver heard of that country before.

[Trenitay]

Do the countries you've never heard of tend to have chickens?

[Tigranes]

Let's not go too far off the realm of conversations that make sense...

[Humodour]

I suggest applying the "seriously, people, they are just games" sentiment to the rest of the above post.

 

Oh really Enoch?

 

"Seriously, people, they are just games" is a valid reason to violate consumer rights? Because he had a good point.

[GunFox]

I never understood what the deal is with achievements. Why do people like collecting them? It's not much different from getting a little star sticker on your homework when you are 8.

 

Personally I prefer no content locked (I don't want to have to spend a lot of spare 'working' to get stuff..I prefer to have fun in a game I paid for) and Windows Live is usually terrible but have to say it wasn't badly implemented recently in Street Fighter IV.

 

 

Yeah I have to agree.

 

I love when games have stuff to unlock through doing neat things. The best being stuff that you can use in-game or stuff that shows up in subsequent playthroughs. Concept art is generally pretty meh, but it is still infinitely better than achievements. This isn't the 1980's. I'm not pumping quarters into a machine aiming for the high score. I want more tangible rewards for exceptional actions.

 

Plus games for windows live promotes DLC. And DLC for 99% of the developers translates into "lets cut cool stuff out and then make you pay extra for it later". Or fallout 3's "lets release DLC that doesn't actually fit into the universe at all". I mean mothership zeta, REALLY guys? It was a corridor shooter.

 

Saints Row 2 does DLC right. They had a general idea of what they wanted to release ahead of time, but they also listened to the community and actually tossed in a bunch of the mess that they wanted. While I do not advocate blindly listening to the fans, taking a few ideas here and there and giving them what they want isn't a bad idea.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

The thing I really don't like is that you have to attach your game to a single account - and you can only do that once I think.

[Shemar]

It would be nice if you could gift games from one steam account to another for a small fee or something.

 

Why on earth would it be ok to pay a 'small fee' for something that should be fundamentally a given? I would only see steam as an acceptable vendor if and ony if each game could be tranferred from one steam account to another at will, without restrictions, limits or fees.

 

The same applies for any scheme that ties games to accounts. Unlimited, unrestricted, free traferrability is a pre-requisite.

 

That still protects the lawful purpose of restricting the use of the game to one person at a time without enforcing the unlawful purpose of preventing re-sale or loan of the game to others.

[uzivatel]

It would be nice if you could gift games from one steam account to another for a small fee or something.

 

Why on earth would it be ok to pay a 'small fee' for something that should be fundamentally a given? I would only see steam as an acceptable vendor if and ony if each game could be tranferred from one steam account to another at will, without restrictions, limits or fees.

 

The same applies for any scheme that ties games to accounts. Unlimited, unrestricted, free traferrability is a pre-requisite.

 

That still protects the lawful purpose of restricting the use of the game to one person at a time without enforcing the unlawful purpose of preventing re-sale or loan of the game to others.

The problem is core gamers are generally cheap idiots who would misuse the transfer mechanism ... look at the PSN, it has pretty generous DRM and gamers are abusing the fact.

[Shemar]

The problem is core gamers are generally cheap idiots who would misuse the transfer mechanism ... look at the PSN, it has pretty generous DRM and gamers are abusing the fact.

 

How exactly can a transfer mechanism be misused? If you are going to the extreme case of transferring it back and forth between people to play near-simultaneously, a limit of one transfer a week or something similar would easily stop that and at the same time not impede valid transfers.

[uzivatel]

How exactly can a transfer mechanism be misused? If you are going to the extreme case of transferring it back and forth between people to play near-simultaneously, a limit of one transfer a week or something similar would easily stop that and at the same time not impede valid transfers.

They would probably make waiting lists

[Shemar]

Hahaha! Well, transferring a game gives full ownership of a game so it would only take one person deciding to keep it for himself to break the list. Not to mention that as long as it remians one player at a time it is still legal. The same as game rentals.

 

Edit: Not to mention that if playing a game for free is such a big deal as to wait on a months long list, there are much easier ways to play a game for free, any game.

Edited September 17, 2009 by Shemar

[SuicideBunny]

Ok, someone needs to explain this to me. I can understand why a pirate like Purkake would think it's a nuisance (since it also functions as some sort of DRM), but for a normal user? I've only played a few games using Windows For Games Live and the last two worked like this: I started up the game, a small box exclaimed that I was online and then I didn't notice it. Except for perhaps once every second hour when I achieved something.

lucky you.

i just spent several hours struggling with gfwl in batman, being able to patch it after having to install a friggin os hotfix that wasn't even findable using microsoft's support site, but still being unable to dl the free dlc, since for some reason gfwl marketplace will not let me log in and download. wohoo.

 

there are several reasons why gfwl sucks, besides the bugs and the violation of consumer rights, the most obvious one is that they are now trying to enforce patch distribution through gfwl, and saves are linked to profiles. net outage = temporary save loss. not being able to patch a game because of a stupid microsoft bug = auto logoff of live profile = temporary save loss.

[AlphaProtocolForever]

Ok, someone needs to explain this to me. I can understand why a pirate like Purkake would think it's a nuisance (since it also functions as some sort of DRM), but for a normal user? I've only played a few games using Windows For Games Live and the last two worked like this: I started up the game, a small box exclaimed that I was online and then I didn't notice it. Except for perhaps once every second hour when I achieved something.

lucky you.

i just spent several hours struggling with gfwl in batman, being able to patch it after having to install a friggin os hotfix that wasn't even findable using microsoft's support site, but still being unable to dl the free dlc, since for some reason gfwl marketplace will not let me log in and download. wohoo.

 

there are several reasons why gfwl sucks, besides the bugs and the violation of consumer rights, the most obvious one is that they are now trying to enforce patch distribution through gfwl, and saves are linked to profiles. net outage = temporary save loss. not being able to patch a game because of a stupid microsoft bug = auto logoff of live profile = temporary save loss.

 

After my GFWL issues with FO3 and mods, I decided that I will not purchase any game using said technology. It is a serious problem.

[mkreku]

I've had no bugs, no installation problems and I certainly do not feel my rights being "violated". I have played both online and offline (because I switched ISP's a while ago) and it's been no problem either. Net outages does not equal temporary save loss (all my saves are local).

 

Every patch I've gotten through GfWL has applied itself within one click of the mouse. I bought an expansion and it worked flawlessly (even if the actual game crashes a lot). I don't even have to login, it does that automatically. I actually wouldn't notice it was there unless those two small windows appeared whenever I start a game. Oh, and when I unlock an achievement, of course.

 

I understand why someone like Bukkake has problems, but I don't understand how the experience could differ so for legitimate users.

[kirottu]

I

[Shemar]

I don't understand how the experience could differ so for legitimate users.

 

Really... try giving the game to one of your friends (siblings, cousins, kids, wife, whatever) to play it or re-selling it and let me know how that works out for you.

[mkreku]

I don't understand how the experience could differ so for legitimate users.

 

Really... try giving the game to one of your friends (siblings, cousins, kids, wife, whatever) to play it or re-selling it and let me know how that works out for you.

So the problem arises when you're trying to give your game away? Gee, that happens every day. Damn that GfWL for ruining my generous soul!

 

I wonder if it's GfWL that's at fault here.

[Killian Kalthorne]

It isn't.

[SuicideBunny]

Net outages does not equal temporary save loss (all my saves are local).

ah, that's at least good to know. could have sworn gfwl wouldn't let me log into my live account back when i had router troubles.

 

I understand why someone like Bukkake has problems, but I don't understand how the experience could differ so for legitimate users.

win xp cannot handle whatever gfwl uses to certify large files, so it's only something you'd experience on win xp and with 250+ mb files (the batman zero day patch was 270, and only now has been made available elsewhere than gfwl), which is why you need the hotfix.

 

as far as the dlc goes, i could not dl it because after the patch troubles i disabled auto login on my live account and played with an offline one, and you are unable to dl or use the batman dls if auto login is disabled.

awesome.

I wonder if it's GfWL that's at fault here.

yes, it is. owning a physical product entitles you to certain rights, including the right to give or sell it to whoever you pretty damn well please. there is no arguing about that.

used games sales have been a thorn for many years in publishers' eyes, which is why they introduce mechanisms like that, one time dlc codes, or their own on-site registration.

 

and btw, this doesn't affect illegal copies since pirates can use either offline gfw accounts, or use any gfwl2 serial to activate any gfwl2 game, though i have no idea whether it allows them to dl patches/dlc.

[SuicideBunny]

I understand why someone like Bukkake has problems, but I don't understand how the experience could differ so for legitimate users.

here's another bit on that matter which you might find interesting:

However, one aspect of it that many players haven't experienced reared its ugly head in the direction of my PC when I tried to review FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage. Yes, it's an old game, but someone's got to work on clearing the backlog, right? (Coincidentally, that could be you, but I digress.) Upon loading the game, I was presented with the Games for Windows Live dialogues. I'll admit, this was the first time I had seen them. Immediately, the game started requesting a login, and thankfully, my Xbox Live credentials worked. Then the game started to download a patch that could involve restarting my PC when the game download did not. The patch hung forever. If I canceled it (as I eventually did), I could not sign on to Live ... and could not save my game progress at all.

 

A little research showed that the FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage publisher had gone kaput. Empire Interactive was gone, and with it, the patch servers, and the ability to save the game. The game's DRM, in the form of Games for Windows Live, essentially prohibited progress in the game without being able to download that patch, which no longer existed. The results aren't pretty when you try to review a racing game and can't access more than the first (admittedly enjoyable) track and initial three cars.

[mkreku]

blah

Sigh. This is getting old. Again it's a case of "skit bakom tangentbordet" (I'm not translating that). If you can't figure out how to play offline then maybe you need to find a new hobby? It really isn't that difficult.

 

You only need patches and "online saves" (they're really not) if you're going for achievements. AGAIN, it's because cheating renders them pretty useless otherwise, right? You can understand that, right..?

[SuicideBunny]

AGAIN, it's because cheating renders them pretty useless otherwise, right?

and gfwl being such an awesome anti cheat tool is the reason why almost all gfwl games with singleplayer have working trainers out on release day which work with you being logged on to gfwl, and why the batman boards were full of topics complaining about ridiculous challenge high-scores shortly after release.

 

the sole point of achievements is to increase sales. cheating has little to no effect on that.

[Raithe]

I think part of it comes down to the annoyance factor..

I've paid for a game to enjoy hours of single-player strory/gameplay.. and you have to jump through a few hoops and tell something that "no, I don't want to be online" before playing a game. Sure, it's only a couple of mouse clicks extra really, and another minute having it run through the sequence before you can escape to the game.. And that it comes up every single time you try running a game...

If it was something that didn't try running on it's own, and I could tell it to only open up and ask me for login details when I _wanted_ it to. If I felt "hey, yeah, I want it to access the net while I play and I'm curious to see how my gameplay talents match up to complete strangers", that would be one thing. But there are games that won't let you play until you download and install games for windows live. Even if you're not going to be using it.

Sure, when it does run you can tell it no. But I want the option of having it only run when I actually want it. Not every fracking tme I feel like getting some single-player game time on.

As it is, I put up with it. But it is background irritation. I don't like being forced to download and install a third-party piece of software to play a game I've bought.

 

I mean GTAIV is a pain in the keister where you have to jump through rockstar social club and games for windows before you can even get into the game.