Yeah i know what a weird title.
It seems as if everyone is going around trying to blame, or congratulate one group over another about the death of MS DRM policies. While I'm sure pre-orders and Sony's stance, and hell maybe even Jimmy Fallon had a role, I don't really see any of those things having the impact necessary to force a company like MS to backpedal and change the direction of their platform.
But that happened, and an interesting thing I saw was the mini backlash against the DRM reversal. Some of that is probably just people refusing to admit that the anger at MS was more than "farts in the wind." but some were genuine. Some people really put a lot of hope into the "family share" feature as the future. For a while it was the only feature on the xbone I saw get a positive reception.
But MS never talked about it. It wasn't at the reveal. It was given little to no time at E3. No one in MS had a concrete policy explanation for it until the last days of E3, and even now we aren't sure what the policy actually was( On the record I don't trust that pastebin post)
Let's talk about Steam for a minute.
http://www.gamefront.com/gabe-newell-talks-about-drm-and-piracy-on-steam/
For the past few years it seemed as if the question of "how do you stop piracy?" had been solved. Introduce services that convience users and push them to platform where they want to spend money. We see this on Steam, itunes, PSN, etc etc
MS didn't really talk about XBL services improving, except catching up to PSN rental service, which makes me wonder. Did MS ever really have this feature locked down? Did MS have the pull necessary to convince the major publishers to sign off on this service, exclusive to MS? I don't think they did. I think if they did, they would have been bragging from the moutaintops. MS would have made a counter video to Sony's used video the next day. MS would have gone on Fallon and pushed it over and over and over again. Major Nelson wouldn't shut up about it.
But they didn't. They barely talked about it. No major publisher, as far as I know have said anything about it. No indie developer, as far as I know, has said how it works for them. It makes me wonder, was family share the focus of MS DRM, which a lot of MS fans on neogaf are saying, where the publishers and indies on board and this was good to go...or was it a backroom idea that got pushed down the pipeline when MS realized how bad their image was being tarnished.
TLR: MS never had the major publishers on board family share plan. Without them MS couldn't do family share. Without family share MS can't balance out negative DRM policies. They cut DRM becuase it's now dead weight.
It seems as if everyone is going around trying to blame, or congratulate one group over another about the death of MS DRM policies. While I'm sure pre-orders and Sony's stance, and hell maybe even Jimmy Fallon had a role, I don't really see any of those things having the impact necessary to force a company like MS to backpedal and change the direction of their platform.
But that happened, and an interesting thing I saw was the mini backlash against the DRM reversal. Some of that is probably just people refusing to admit that the anger at MS was more than "farts in the wind." but some were genuine. Some people really put a lot of hope into the "family share" feature as the future. For a while it was the only feature on the xbone I saw get a positive reception.
But MS never talked about it. It wasn't at the reveal. It was given little to no time at E3. No one in MS had a concrete policy explanation for it until the last days of E3, and even now we aren't sure what the policy actually was( On the record I don't trust that pastebin post)
Let's talk about Steam for a minute.
http://www.gamefront.com/gabe-newell-talks-about-drm-and-piracy-on-steam/
PA: Theres also this huge conversation going about used games and piracy. Do you feel like youve kind of successfully sidestepped those issues with Steam as a service provider?
Gabe Newell: I get fairly frustrated when I hear how the issue is framed in a lot of cases. To us it seems pretty obvious that people always want to treat it as a pricing issue, that people are doing this because they can get it for free and so we just need to create these draconian DRM systems or anti-piracy systems, and that just really doesnt match up with the data.
As a customer, I want to be able to access my stuff wherever I am, and if you put in place a system that makes me wonder if Ill be able to get it then youve significantly decreased the value of it. People were worried when we started using Steam initially because, oh my gosh, if I dont have my discs what happens when I get a new machine? And after theyve done this a couple times theyre like oh my god, this is so much better, Im so much more likely to lose my discs than I am to have any problem with my Steam account, that seems way better than having a physical token that I use to access my content.
For the past few years it seemed as if the question of "how do you stop piracy?" had been solved. Introduce services that convience users and push them to platform where they want to spend money. We see this on Steam, itunes, PSN, etc etc
MS didn't really talk about XBL services improving, except catching up to PSN rental service, which makes me wonder. Did MS ever really have this feature locked down? Did MS have the pull necessary to convince the major publishers to sign off on this service, exclusive to MS? I don't think they did. I think if they did, they would have been bragging from the moutaintops. MS would have made a counter video to Sony's used video the next day. MS would have gone on Fallon and pushed it over and over and over again. Major Nelson wouldn't shut up about it.
But they didn't. They barely talked about it. No major publisher, as far as I know have said anything about it. No indie developer, as far as I know, has said how it works for them. It makes me wonder, was family share the focus of MS DRM, which a lot of MS fans on neogaf are saying, where the publishers and indies on board and this was good to go...or was it a backroom idea that got pushed down the pipeline when MS realized how bad their image was being tarnished.
TLR: MS never had the major publishers on board family share plan. Without them MS couldn't do family share. Without family share MS can't balance out negative DRM policies. They cut DRM becuase it's now dead weight.