• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Did Family Share kill Xbox DRM?

remnant

Banned
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/
PA: There’s also this huge conversation going about used games and piracy. Do you feel like you’ve 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 doesn’t 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 I’ll be able to get it then you’ve significantly decreased the value of it. People were worried when we started using Steam initially because, oh my gosh, if I don’t have my discs what happens when I get a new machine? And after they’ve done this a couple times they’re like “oh my god, this is so much better, I’m 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.

TL:DR: 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.
 

Binabik15

Member
I don't know, but one of my first thoughts was "Well, now they won't have to figure out how to do family sharing, after all". because I highly doubt that they knew how it was going to work.
 

Amneisac

Member
We'll never know, and I'm sure it could have contributed. It almost sounded like it started as some exec. basically encouraging people to 'abuse' a loophole or at least a system that wasn't fully baked.

Maybe the pressure of all the negative press made them crack and they overpromised on the family sharing and then between all the problems working that out and also the backlash over the DRM stuff they just said 'fuck it'.
 

Nibel

Member
Not Family Share plan, not Jimmy Fallon

Pre-order numbers for the console + major negative buzz killed Xbox DRM
 

Guevara

Member
Family plan was never real, it was a distraction that worked on a ton of people. Luckily it did not work on everyone.
 
There was a post on 'pastebin' by a guy claiming to be an MS employee who outlined what the family share plan was - according to him the feature only allowed a 'family member' to play a game in someone else's library for a limited time - 15-45 minutes. In this sense it was little more than a demo option for every game.

Though we should take this with a pinch of salt, I would tend to believe him that the plan was not as great as some here had believed, as allowing 10 people to play a game without buying it seems deeply hypocritical of MS's stance of reducing used game sales.
 

nib95

Banned
Possibly. A post I made on this earlier...

If you guys read this particular segment of the Licensing page here.

Microsoft said:
In our role as a game publisher, Microsoft Studios will enable you to give your games to friends or trade in your Xbox One games at participating retailers. Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers. Microsoft does not receive any compensation as part of this. In addition, third party publishers can enable you to give games to friends. Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners.

And now link it with CBOAT's (translated) comments.

GAF thread here.

TEH FIANAL LOVDOWN. shufflemoveto the infooplace!

CBOAT said:
2. More DRM messaging at Gamescom. There is no rental strategy. Try to sweep it under the rug and hope people don't remember.

3. Cloud power was designed as DRM. Period. DRM was Microsoft's idea. EA and Ubisoft are supporters, Activision slightly less so.

4. DRM plans are actually worse than what they've stated.

Seems the sharing or lending schemes were not finalised at all, and very well could have gotten much worse. Maybe publishers didn't agree to it, or the reality was a much worse system just as Cboat stated, that would have enraged consumers more.
 

Fox Mulder

Member
the family share plan just sounded like some half baked idea to get people on board after all the backlash.

How were devs going to be cool with people sharing the same $60 with 10 other people, especially when used games are supposed to be some some evil force keeping food off their tables. Sony had game sharing on the ps3 and psp and scaled it back to two consoles presumably due to developers crying about it.
 
Lack of firm details on how it would work and any restrictions suggests the policy wasn't fully nailed down or worked out with developers and publishers.
 

Ephemeris

Member
There was a post on 'pastebin' by a guy claiming to be an MS employee who outlined what the family share plan was - according to him the feature only allowed a 'family member' to play a game in someone else's library for a limited time - 15-45 minutes. In this sense it was little more than a demo option for every game.

Though we should take this with a pinch of salt, I would tend to believe him that the plan was not as great as some here had believed, as allowing 10 people to play a game without buying it seems deeply hypocritical of MS's stance of reducing used game sales.

Yeah, paired with this and what CBOAT said I'm thinking it was nothing more than Microsoft's take on PSN Plus' Full Game Trial.
 

Sky Chief

Member
Family plan was never real, it was a distraction that worked on a ton of people. Luckily it did not work on everyone.

It was like the PSP Go's UMD Trade-In program. An idea to get pissed off consumers on board that was never real/would never materialize.
 

Sacul64

Banned
There was a post on 'pastebin' by a guy claiming to be an MS employee who outlined what the family share plan was - according to him the feature only allowed a 'family member' to play a game in someone else's library for a limited time - 15-45 minutes. In this sense it was little more than a demo option for every game.

Though we should take this with a pinch of salt, I would tend to believe him that the plan was not as great as some here had believed, as allowing 10 people to play a game without buying it seems deeply hypocritical of MS's stance of reducing used game sales.

Was there a topic on the pastbin thing? I had not heard about that.
 
I think it had more to do with tremendous negative backlash for the last several weeks than the family sharing, although that was certainly a part of it I'm sure.
 

Averon

Member
The Family Plan was all smoke and mirrors to try to calm the shit storm MS kicked up with their draconian DRM policies. MS couldn't even get their story straight on what the plan actually entails, clear evidence it was quickly and thoughtlessly thrown together to get some positive news out of the Xbone's new shitty policies. The fact that it was quickly killed the minute they dropped their DRM garbage is even more evidence that the Family Plan was a last minute thing, and that it was never integrated into the Xbone's ecosystem.
 

jmdajr

Member
So if it was all BS, where did this Family Plan originate from? Who was the first to post about it?

Was it like one of those rumors that grew a life on it's own?

"Did you hear, I heard you can share your game while a whole other country!"
 

Mononoke

Banned
So if it was all BS, where did this Family Plan originate from? Who was the first to post about it?

Was it like one of those rumors that grew a life on it's own?

"Did you hear, I heard you can share your game while a whole other country!"

Was used to deflect the negative press about the always online DRM. I think MS expected it to die down and go away.
 

Perkel

Banned
Why people assume that family plan was supposed to work like sharing games on PSN ?

Whole point of it was to share your game but to share it you would need to be offline. Which means that if your friend wants to play that game you would need to be logged off from your Xbox. Without this your game would only work 1h.
MS said that only one person can use library in family not that 10 person could play their library at the same time.

I know this program is already dead but i can't grasp from where people get this ridiculous statements
 

Eusis

Member
I know this program is already dead but i can't grasp from where people get this ridiculous statements
Short single player game, everyone takes turns ripping through fast or just gets some in while others aren't playing. If it's organized well you could easily decimate sales there, and even longer games may be split well between two or three, I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few of us shared an RPG with a sibling, room mate, whatever rather than both getting their own copy to keep playing regardless of whether the other was playing or not (though that'd also need either multiple consoles or PCs.)
 

eso76

Member
I thought so too, that or maybe they just realised it just wasn't feasible.
There were too many aspects of the whole thing that would not work or would cause Microsoft engineers quite a few headaches.
I am sure it's not consumers' feedback that made them change their mind, and I'm sure ms would have been just fine with the DRM.
 

RetroStu

Banned
I don't know why people are even bothered about this, i mean its nothing we have had before anyway so its not like we are losing something plus anyone who thinks you would of been able to lend games to 9 other people at a time are seriously deluded lol, developers would be in constant meltdown.
 

Perkel

Banned
Short single player game, everyone takes turns ripping through fast or just gets some in while others aren't playing. If it's organized well you could easily decimate sales there, and even longer games may be split well between two or three, I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few of us shared an RPG with a sibling, room mate, whatever rather than both getting their own copy to keep playing regardless of whether the other was playing or not (though that'd also need either multiple consoles or PCs.)

Do you realize that this would mean that whole library could be only accessed by one person ? That 10 thing wasn't for one or two games. It was for whole library.

Which means that if someone plays game from that library no one can play any other game on their system from that library.

It would be like playing WOW on same account. Every xbox was supposed to be always online so you couldn't just turn of login and you would end up with 1h of game.
 

Give

Neo Member
Why people assume that family plan was supposed to work like sharing games on PSN ?

Whole point of it was to share your game but to share it you would need to be offline. Which means that if your friend wants to play that game you would need to be logged off from your Xbox. Without this your game would only work 1h.
MS said that only one person can use library in family not that 10 person could play their library at the same time.

I know this program is already dead but i can't grasp from where people get this ridiculous statements

I don't remember reading anything about the owner needing to be offline for people in their "family" to access their games library. Do you have a source for this?
 

Zoe

Member
Do you realize that this would mean that whole library could be only accessed by one person ? That 10 thing wasn't for one or two games. It was for whole library.

Which means that if someone plays game from that library no one can play any other game on their system from that library.

That is how most interpreted the policy as written on the website.

I don't remember reading anything about the owner needing to be offline for people in their "family" to access their games library. Do you have a source for this?

Plus this.
 

Perkel

Banned
I don't remember reading anything about the owner needing to be offline for people in their "family" to access their games library. Do you have a source for this?

MS said that only one person can access library at the same time. Which means that either system would block other user from library or log you out from account when you try to access your library when someone else is playing game.

Same thing is on PSN when you try to play multiplayer on two different consoles in game that was bought by only one account.


edit:

- Family sharing policies were no different to account sharing policies we are already accustomed. That policy stated only that you can have your account on several xbox one consoles and your library will work on all of them if that library is accessed by one person at the time.

Whole point of that was to say : We are not Nintendo we do not tie your account to hardware bought. We allow you to have more than one account clone on other xbox.

aka "family sharing" something which is already used by people on live and psn

Somehow from that people jumped to conclussion and started to say that they can buy one game and play with 10 other friends.
 

eastmen

Banned
it was killed by short sided people who couldn't see the future. Now its grandmothers and grand fathers pushing gaming forward on iphones and androids and not console users. Console users are stuck in the past for another 8 years while the rest of the industry moves forward at lightning speed.


The way ms was going to implement game sharing would have increased our rights across digital mediums. But nope console gamers still want to sell plastic discs for a pittance.

That is what killed family share and drm.
 

Eusis

Member
Do you realize that this would mean that whole library could be only accessed by one person ? That 10 thing wasn't for one or two games. It was for whole library.

Which means that if someone plays game from that library no one can play any other game on their system from that library.

It would be like playing WOW on same account. Every xbox was supposed to be always online so you couldn't just turn of login and you would end up with 1h of game.
I swore I read it was going to be just the one game at a time, not the entire library, which makes more sense to me. If it's like you're saying and you're not the one that misunderstood then I could see why this wasn't going to work out.
 

Zoe

Member
MS said that only one person can access library at the same time. Which means that either system would block other user from library or log you out from account when you try to access your library when someone else is playing game.

Same thing is on PSN when you try to play multiplayer on two different consoles in game that was bought by only one account.

It was stated on the website and by some PR that you ALWAYS have access to your own games.

And only a small percentage of PSN shares locked you out of multiplayer. Online-only games and Capcom games in particular.
 

remnant

Banned
it was killed by short sided people who couldn't see the future. Now its grandmothers and grand fathers pushing gaming forward on iphones and androids and not console users. Console users are stuck in the past for another 8 years while the rest of the industry moves forward at lightning speed.


The way ms was going to implement game sharing would have increased our rights across digital mediums. But nope console gamers still want to sell plastic discs for a pittance.

That is what killed family share and drm.

If so, then why didn't MS say that?

You seem to be more passionate about family share than MS did.
 

RetroStu

Banned
it was killed by short sided people who couldn't see the future. Now its grandmothers and grand fathers pushing gaming forward on iphones and androids and not console users. Console users are stuck in the past for another 8 years while the rest of the industry moves forward at lightning speed.


The way ms was going to implement game sharing would have increased our rights across digital mediums. But nope console gamers still want to sell plastic discs for a pittance.

That is what killed family share and drm.

Its not the future if the people don't want it and they don't want it.
 

nib95

Banned
it was killed by short sided people who couldn't see the future. Now its grandmothers and grand fathers pushing gaming forward on iphones and androids and not console users. Console users are stuck in the past for another 8 years while the rest of the industry moves forward at lightning speed.


The way ms was going to implement game sharing would have increased our rights across digital mediums. But nope console gamers still want to sell plastic discs for a pittance.

That is what killed family share and drm.

You're talking out of your ass. There is literally no reason why Microsoft can't provide those same benefits to their digital software right now. If you want people to swap from disc based gaming to digital gaming, you add value proposition to digital downloads. Steam does this by allowing unlimited downloads and crazy pricing models even from day one. Microsoft and to a lesser extent Sony, do not do this. It's about give and take, Microsoft wanted to start with the 'take', and given their awful reputation for ass hattery and greed, gamers weren't willing to wait for a non existent 'give', and frankly, you're utterly naive if you think Microsoft would have kept the deal sweet. The very fact that they've removed digital sharing proves that.
 

Eusis

Member
Its not the future if the people don't want it and they don't want it.
Admittedly there is potential there. I just don't want it to come with effectively being always online or to undermine physical sales. If Steam uses this then they will clear the path on a platform where physical's practically gone outside of casual titles, huge games, and Europe.
 

Amneisac

Member
If so, then why didn't MS say that?

You seem to be more passionate about family share than MS did.

This backlash against MS for changing policies is hilarious to me. I guess we have fanboys, and now we have hipster fanboys or something? It makes no sense, but whatever keeps people entertained I guess.

I'm sure the next generation will be 100% digital and will require online connections, etc. Not just MS but all consoles (maybe not Nintendo since they probably couldn't figure it out), but it's coming. We all know it's coming. They were just trying it a little early. I do not believe this was our chance at getting 'digital rights' and now we're all shit out of luck for the next generation.
 

harlekin

Member
Something named "family sharing" was never ment to and though of being abused in mass by people to share with their friends or neogaf pals.. ;) .

Not officially. Maybe under some vail of "its not right but fun".

People who sign into the official Gizmodo (Gawker) world view have some serious dizzy spells cast on them.

But nevermind, even if you are following the Gizmodo proclamation of events, you have lost nothing. 24 hour checkins (periodical online checks, 24 hour offline licenses, ..) were never necessary for any of the game sharing or digital resale models proclaimed. Nor was the death of offline discbased gaming, or the death of independent resale.

You have all your proclaimed "Future options" to look forward to becoming a part of digital download models, an we have our offline fallback, in case the One Library Owners to rule them all pull another stunt on digital download license agreements. Which the will.

Which they have to, once Steam announces its "gamesharing" model.

Gizmodo is spin vendor No1.

Beware of the imp.
 

muzzymate

Member
I think the publishers would have killed it within a year of the Xbox One's release anyway. No tear shed for the loss of it.
 

eastmen

Banned
If so, then why didn't MS say that?

You seem to be more passionate about family share than MS did.

ms has been saying that . People just haven't been listening. They already explained the family game share features. People just couldn't see past DRM and limited used game sales to see the big picture.
 

eastmen

Banned
You're talking out of your ass. There is literally no reason why Microsoft can't provide those same benefits to their digital software right now. If you want people to swap from disc based gaming to digital gaming, you add value proposition to digital downloads. Steam does this by allowing unlimited downloads and crazy pricing models even from day one. Microsoft and to a lesser extent Sony, do not do this. It's about give and take, Microsoft wanted to start with the 'take', and given their awful reputation for ass hattery and greed, gamers weren't willing to wait for a non existent 'give', and frankly, you're utterly naive if you think Microsoft would have kept the deal sweet. The very fact that they've removed digital sharing proves that.

no 24 hour check effectively ruins game sharing.

Your also extremely wrong about steam. Bioshock infinite is still $60 on steam. Steam has been around for a decade and thus they have a decades worth of old games to put on crazy sales.
 

Perkel

Banned
It was stated on the website and by some PR that you ALWAYS have access to your own games.

And only a small percentage of PSN shares locked you out of multiplayer. Online-only games and Capcom games in particular.

It doesn't negate anything what i said. "You have always access to your own games"*
* Only one player at the time.

Which means that if you want to use your account to play something you need to call your friend and tell him to stop playing and viceversa. Without it you can't play your game (1h only)
 

Zoe

Member
It doesn't negate anything what i said. "You have always access to your own games"*
* Only one player at the time.

Which means that if you want to use your account to play something you need to call your friend and tell him to stop playing and viceversa. Without it you can't play your game (1h only)

Except that contradicts what every PR person said in that you don't count yourself.
 

nib95

Banned
no 24 hour check effectively ruins game sharing.

Your also extremely wrong about steam. Bioshock infinite is still $60 on steam. Steam has been around for a decade and thus they have a decades worth of old games to put on crazy sales.

Beauty of Steam is that it has competitor pricing. Eg, buy it here for just £18.

http://play-sc.com/BioShock-Infinite-PC-Download-Steam-CD-Key.html?gclid=CMDuwOOl87cCFRHItAod6ywAWw

And all they have to do is say that to do family sharing you need a 24 hour online check, but only if you want to family share. Problem solved.
 

devilhawk

Member
Family share came out in response to the backlash after the May revealing. If it was as great as some posters think it was, it would have been presented at E3 and not just random interview sound bites.
 

remnant

Banned
ms has been saying that . People just haven't been listening. They already explained the family game share features. People just couldn't see past DRM and limited used game sales to see the big picture.

What!? I'm sorry, who cancelled all of their post E3 interviews? Who cancelled their E3 roundtables. Who didn't even mention this at the XBOX ONE REVEAL?

Ms had plenty of oppurtunities to go, step by step and show how this works. They could have showed which publishers were on board and how this afected indie games. They didn't do anything.

This is MS for god's sake. The idea that they didn't have a voice is laughable
 

harlekin

Member
Which means that if you want to use your account to play something you need to call your friend and tell him to stop playing and viceversa. Without it you can't play your game (1h only)

More likely you would have had an option to boot him out of "lending" the game at will. (As far as time Limitations for family sharing goes, none were announced. No scenarios given.) Which will produce social guilt.

The best use case for Gamers in the "familiy sharing" configuration as comunicated by the latest leaks in this forum would have been a "i share you if you lent me" configuration of events, because managing sharing windows, and returns would have become unmanageable otherwise - while limiting the share slot to 1 game only reagardless of library size would have made it too valuable to give it up for nothing in return.

There was one thing which now is missing though. The amount of people using this misguided, misaligned, sharing slots are valuable above even the intent of "giving for free", option would have increased manyfold over traditional sharing.

But you would have lost all innocence of sharing your games with your friends. Because sharing slots would have become that much more valuable, because they were limited at one per borrower and sharer. While at the same time access to one would have become more desirable for the majority of gamers.
 

Perkel

Banned
Except that contradicts what every PR person in that you don't count yourself.

Why ?

In document which they posted online (along with rest of policies) they clearly stated that only one person at the time can play (from 10 shared).

That is whole point of it. They never stated that your friends/family can use your library at the same time. It was tied to always on policy.

Poor understanding of written policy and here we are:

"we can buy game and 10 people will play it. AMAZING."

More likely you would have had an option to boot him out of "lending" the game at will. (As far as time Limitations for family sharing goes, none were announced. No scenarios given.) Which will produce social guilt.

The best use case for Gamers in the "familiy sharing" configuration as comunicated by the latest leaks in this forum would have been a "i share you if you lent me" configuration of events, because managing sharing windows, and returns would have become unmanageable otherwise - while limiting the share slot to 1 game only reagardless of library size would have made it too valuable to give it up for nothing in return.

There was one thing which now is missing though. The amount of people using this misguided, misaligned, sharing slots are valuable above even the intent of "giving for free", option would have increased manyfold over traditional sharing.

But you would have lost all innocence of sharing your games with your friends. Because sharing slots would have become that much more valuable, because they were limited at one per borrower. While at the same time access to one would have become more desirable for the majority of gamers.

What i don't get the most out of this whole thing is why people think MS would even be so charitable in first place.
People for some reason assumed that this policy is essentially PSN with 10 authorization completely missing the fact that only one person at the time can use shared account and since your games only work when you are online (otherwise 1h) this would mean no sharing among your friend unless you want to call every time you want to play game your friend.
 

nib95

Banned
What!? I'm sorry, who cancelled all of their post E3 interviews? Who cancelled their E3 roundtables. Who didn't even mention this at the XBOX ONE REVEAL?

Ms had plenty of oppurtunities to go, step by step and show how this works. They could have showed which publishers were on board and how this afected indie games. They didn't do anything.

This is MS for god's sake. The idea that they didn't have a voice is laughable

It's because it was not going to be ready for launch. None of the lending or borrowing stuff was. The rumour was it might not ever come to proper fruition.

Read my post above, it clearly stated in their small print that borrowing/lending etc would NOT be available for launch, because they were still working things out with Publishers. Doubt publishers would have even agreed to it tbh.
 
Top Bottom