Let’s use this for comments on what they had to show as a whole.
Currnetly (at the time of writing) live at:
So far I’m not impressed by the exclusives.
Ryse was QTE: The Game, hopefully it gets deeper.
Dark Souls II and Metal Gear Solid V looked amazing though.
The former I’ll get on PC, the latter who knows, hopefully the same.
Crimson Dragon moved to Xbox One as expected.
It looks good, hopefully it’s not still a Kinect exclusive.
Dead Rising 3 should be fun enough but seems to lack in style and craze.
The Witcher 3 looks great, but I was disappointed in 2. They’re saying the right things though, overhauling the combat and making it more free roaming. I’ll get it for PC.
And Battlefield 4, well, it’s Battlefield. I didn’t play 3 too much, but I guess I’ll upgrade.
So far there’s nothing to get past the DRM and connectivity deal, but it’s not too bad.
Better if you don’t care to invest in a PC I suppose.
Titanfall looks alright, at least it’s not another COD clone, if still an FPS.
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]Crimson Dragon moved to Xbox One as expected.
[/quote]
There goes any interest I have in the game. Lame.
Really excited about Dark Souls 2 and Witcher 3 however. My PC is ready for this! 
Nothing too interesting aside from Crimson Dragon (which seems to have changed only graphically, some of the scenes shown were identical to the Xbox360 version). But the price is really a deal breaker, they’re asking more than they did for the Xbox360.
Yeah, I didn’t list everything in my posts mind you so visit your usual sources for that, they also had things like Killer Instinct, a few games they only showed CG for, the next Forza, etc, nothing mind blowing if you ask me, the most interesting things were non exclusives, like Metal Gear Solid V and Dark Souls II.
I hope MGS Rising getting a PC release means we’re getting V as well because that looks like the first real evolution in a direction I want since MGS1.
EA’s conference is next, up in ~40 minutes. I guess we don’t need a thread, just make a thread if they show something mind blowing, like Mirror’s Edge 2.
I’ll just leave threads for the big three here, the forum isn’t active but whoever can comment on it all whenever they feel like it anyway.
They teased Halo 5, so that was interesting to me.
Everything else (yes, that includes CD) was just meh. No Fable or Gears of War…
The price announced wasn’t great either imo. 499 euros is just too much.
Especially with gold near mandatory (even if they updated it to give free games like PS Plus).
Blasphemy.
Who did MS consult for the DRM anyway? I don’t get it. You’d think it’d be in collaboration with publishers that they considered this. Why would publishers push for it only on one platform, knowing Sony won’t go along with it? I could understand them if they intended to focus on the Xbox, trying to force the market to their needs, but they seem to provide equal support to the PS4, which only harms the Xbox and therefor their wish to push DRM. I would think they would prefer parity and therefor back down from wanting DRM on Xbox.
Screw Attack wrote this piece before E3, but I think much of it is still relevant:
screwattack.com/news/xbox-on … a-saturn-0
Worst console reveal since the Sega Saturn? Quite possibility. It seems that Crimson Dragon is following in Panzer Dragoon’s footsteps by being released on consoles that are poorly marketed.
So they changed their policies and backpedaled on the online requirements, gamers win. The change comes with some downsides as well, notably the lack of sharing for digital purchases which appears to be an unrelated change but whatever, I guess.
Now if only people made as much of a stink over the now near-mandatory paid PS Plus.
And if only online and season passes and excessive DLC didn’t act like DRM anyway.
If it works the same as the 360, you’ll still be able to share your digital games with other people using the same console, so long as the licenses are linked to your console (which can be transferred to a new console every six months). It’s still better than Steam which does not allow any sharing of digital purchases.
Anyway, this is good news. Now if only they would provide an option to turn the Kinect off when the console is turned off.
I’m not sure what you mean. Share on the same console? I guess it’s nice if they care about achievements but if they have to get over to my place then it doesn’t really matter if they login as themselves using an own account or not. They can play just as well on any platform I use. With Steam I can also install it on every trusted person’s machine at the same time, just not play online games at the same time. So, while they don’t officially support sharing of games among different accounts you can still in practice share your actual account with trusted family and friends on different systems as long as you just login for them (or trust them enough to share your password). PS3 afaik did an inbetween solution, you could put your account on up to 5 machines then every account on those 5 machines could play your games. Or something, I’m not entirely sure. It’s still something you’d only do for people you can personally visit or otherwise trust enough to give them your information of course.
On another note EA announced they’re backpedaling on the online pass stuff so, one more down. That’s a pretty pleasant surprise. Hopefully it will last and the rest will follow too.
Edit: and it seems MS never intended for real PSN style sharing, they’d have time and try limits on your shared library for other people, so I guess the change didn’t kill much.
Yeah, I meant you can share your games library with any user using the same Xbox 360 console. It’s not just achievements that this affects, but leaderboards, save files, friends lists, and purchasing power as well (although that last point may require you to enter your password again on Steam, not sure). I’ve heard horror stories about parents losing thousands of dollars from their kids buying in-game items in iOS games because they shared their account details.
When it comes to save games, you could just find the file on your harddrive and swap it around when your friend wants to play (if the game only supports one save slot per user), but it’s bit of a hassle, and means that you have to leave Steam Big Picture mode to do so. It might not work for cloud saves either.
Furthermore, it’s questionable whether sharing your account is compatible with the Steam Subscriber Agreement. The agreement says, “You are entitled to use the Software for your own personal use, but you are not entitled to: (i) sell, grant a security interest in or transfer reproductions of the Software to other parties in any way”. Of course there’s no way for them to enforce this (without a Kinect style camera spying on you ;)).
My point is really that Steam is designed around a single user, whereas on the 360 (and it sounds like the PS3 as well), they expect your setup to have multiple people using the same system. If Valve wants to compete in the living room space I think this is something they need to fix; it’s one area where Microsoft are (surprisingly) ahead of them.
I’m just saying they offer different freedoms in practice rather than being “behind”. I think it’s a bigger freedom to allow install on any machine at any time (even if they technically only allow it for multiple machines you personally use) rather than to allow multiple users on one machine the use of which comes naturally for everything you own whether you have an unenforceable and not necessarily legally binding EULA that says otherwise or not.
The save issue would only occur when playing on the same system (and as you say with the game itself only allowing one save slot, which I wouldn’t say is the majority, though it’s certainly prominent at times, but it also isn’t an issue Steam introduces, it’s how some games were made on PC and other platforms before too), you could have different saves on different systems if you disable cloud syncing, and purchasing would be done on said trusted person’s own account rather than yours (which they’d presumably also share with you to return the favor) as you also don’t have to save your credit card and other information on Steam but merely input it every time you want to make a purchase avoiding any iOS style accidents, hacks, or whatever else (and yes you need to input your password on iOS however after using it once it then has a short period where it won’t ask for it again).
It seems to me that to allow multiple users on Steam would likely mean they have to introduce some of the same restrictions about the number of machines an account can be used on and how usable the offline mode would be, as otherwise they would be making it much easier to share with people you don’t necessarily even trust or know and you merely sell access to your games to by logging in once for them and then having them use their own account, with access to your whole library of potentially thousands of games and no additional ties to you, never having to login on their end again.
The easier fix would be for games to use their own account systems for leaderboards (and allowing login to them as long as you’re playing from any valid Steam account with the game owned, rather than getting tied to a specific Steam account) and not to only offer one save slot. But of course I don’t think it’s prudent for Valve to start demanding certain things from developers like some kind of first party, they’re still only a store as far as I’m concerned whether they also offer optional features like leaderboards or not. So I don’t really care whether they compete in the living room in the way a console does or not either (and if they would demand anything it would be for them to use their built in functions anyway of course, to further extend their reach). They’re not the PC platform, they’re part of it.
I understand your point - in practice, your game library can be played on more devices on Steam than on Xbox. But if you’re using the service in a way that is against what’s allowed in the EULA, and against what the system is designed around (to be used by a single user), is there really much distinction between getting the second copy from Steam or via a torrent site?
They could go with the iTunes model and allow your content to be synced with 5 devices. You can activate/deactivate devices at any time. When Steam is connected (under any account), it could automatically deactivate any games which aren’t registered to the device in use.
Ideally, I’d prefer the GOG model though. DRM free, with permission to install the game on as many games as you want within your “household”. But with an account system that you can opt into.
I agree that they don’t need to demand that publishers add these features. Many of Steam’s better features work because developers can opt-in (rather than being forced to add achievements, etc, for games where it makes no sense to have them). It’s prudent to have an infrastructure in place to deliver a great gaming experience though. I’m not sure how well a leaderboards system would work if was decentralised to the extent that every publisher (or game) used a separate system, especially when your friends list is integrated heavily into the game. For example Trials HD it shows a marker depicting where your friend was located on the track at a particular time. You’d have to add your friends again for that particular game if the game used a separate friends list from the rest of your games. More likely, players wouldn’t bother. A peer to peer friends system that works like Bitcoin might be cool though.
Yes there is, EULAS aren’t the law, and I don’t see why anyone should feel morally in the wrong for sharing games with, for example, family in the same household. I suppose where the line lies is up to the individual.
I’m not sure I get this. They allow your content to be synced with infinite devices, why would you want less? I don’t understand how allowing 5 devices instead of infinite would be what enables them to allow multiple users to share games if on the same system. That seems like a spearate system.
Gog rocks.
Anyway ultimately they’re still all just stores and they’re all bound to offer some older game that only allowed a single save and didn’t even save in a specific user documents folder but rather the game’s main directory. I don’t think it’s these stores that can solve such issues but the developers of each game individually to do so.
I suppose they could do something like allow login of more than one account at the same time (with no offline mode allowed at that point perhaps), then letting you play any game on any of the simultaneously logged in accounts as any of the users (it could ask who you’d like to play as when launching it or something, then you’d log out of the other accounts when your friends left to stop the nag) but that would still mostly work for the achievements and other built in Steam features rather than circumvent whatever saving system/structure the developer has done which most likely uses the currently logged in Windows user at best and the game’s directory at worst.
Just catching up with a few things, and realised I hadn’t replied to your post Alex.
That’s a good point about EULAs not being legal. And I was talking about legal, rather than moral, implications. In theory then, someone could install their Steam games on unlimited PCs set to offline mode?
You can have your apps and other content on 5 devices at a time is my understanding of the FairPlay DRM. Which devices are currently authorised can be managed in iTunes. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay#Restrictions
So, you could download your apps of five devices at a time using your own account. Then you could log in as a second user, but on the first user’s device, and access the first user’s apps, but the second user’s cloud saves, leaderboards, etc. I’m not sure if that is possible with iTunes, but that’s how it could work in theory for Steam.
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]Anyway ultimately they’re still all just stores and they’re all bound to offer some older game that only allowed a single save and didn’t even save in a specific user documents folder but rather the game’s main directory. I don’t think it’s these stores that can solve such issues but the developers of each game individually to do so.
I suppose they could do something like allow login of more than one account at the same time (with no offline mode allowed at that point perhaps), then letting you play any game on any of the simultaneously logged in accounts as any of the users (it could ask who you’d like to play as when launching it or something, then you’d log out of the other accounts when your friends left to stop the nag) but that would still mostly work for the achievements and other built in Steam features rather than circumvent whatever saving system/structure the developer has done which most likely uses the currently logged in Windows user at best and the game’s directory at worst.[/quote]
I guess some of agreed upon save game directory structure would be the best way to resolve that, which doesn’t seem very likely to happen.
I wonder if this Xbox One fiasco is causing Valve to second guess their supposed plans for a SteamBox? In essence, the SteamBox would be a controlled system with no used games and no trading of games with friends. I have no doubts that is where the industry is going to end up, though I still support those fighting this (like GOG). Would people accept restrictions with SteamBox because the expectation of Steam users are already understood?
I like the work Valve is doing in promoting Linux, but I guess in the end, I would rather have Linux officially supported with more games that don’t require any 3rd part software to operate.
I have to admit I am as guilty as ever in supporting the idea of Steam as I have a huge Steam library of games now due to all the awesome sales they run. I haven’t paid more than 5 dollars for most of my games from Steam with the exception of games like Skyrim that I purchased a physical copy of, but are tied to Steam anyway.