And six years later we don't give a damn! That's where we are...

I was just watching the video below by Giant Bomb; it is perfectly illustrates how little we 'sweat' about downloadable games or rights/ownership in 2020. (Almost 7 years ago!)

Sony and Microsoft have talked about their consoles enough to assume DRM won't be changing much. Nevertheless, NOBODY is questioning the DRM and ownership issues at all - it not even being questioned or wondered about. In 2020 we have simply absorbed what games ownership is like for downloaded games, what it means when you buy a disc vs downloading a game. This is good, less stress for sure. We would all hope the question of DRM would just stay the same this generation.

A video made by giants...

Also, what a world we lived in when Jeff, Ryan, Vinny, Brad, Patrick and Drew all were under one roof.

Just though I'd give the links to the other videos that show the steps that Microsoft had on each side of the above video.

May 22, 2013 Xbox One Reveal: Giant Bomb [HERE]
An amazing reveal, worth watching again!

Jun 19, 2013 Giant Bomb Xbox One DRM Policy Update Reaction[HERE]
This is the famous Xbox 180 reveal where Microsoft back off from the DRM we saw in the first video.

MO-CAP DOGS!!!

Thank you Adam Boyes

People like Jim Sterling talk about this all the time, it's being talked about plenty, just not constantly.

There's still plenty of concern around ownership and DRM, not mentioned much here but it hasn't gone away. The likes of always online and un-tradable/sellable media is still a deal-breaker for many and an announcement of these for PS5/Series X would go down almost as poorly now as it did then.

@someoneproud: You are right. But, it is nice not to have the deer in the headlights panic. In 2013 there was this feeling like you'f never feel like you own anything and that at the snap of fingers by some vice president means you don't even have games.

Yes, DRM matters folks. But I think the "everything is going to change and there is NOTHING you can do - you won't even feel like you own anything" feeling has passed. As it stand, we don't own games any more than we did from 1994 to 2012, but at least the "facade" of ownership feels secure in 2020. In 2013, it seems like even the facade of the ability to sell a game disc was in danger. In 2020 you can still put your game on eBay to sell it, if you wanted to you can get ripped off by Game Stop for credit (at least until Mach)

At the time, DRM on the Xbox One was less of a deal for me than the fact that they were trying to sell it as a home entertainment system instead primarily as a gaming system. It didn't help that their first party stuff was dreadful. They had bigger fish to fry, and they were no longer interested in speaking to me as someone primarily interested in the Xbox One as a video game system. Going to the PS4 was an easy choice.

@monkeyking1969: Ahh ok. Yeah folk are not as panicked about it these days. I feel that the majority of concerns never came to pass in the end so there hasn't really been the same need for worry, thankfully. To try for a laboured analogy: most people have some concern for being burgled but no-one really panics about it until someone's climbing through the window.

I like to think (and hope) neither Sony or MS is going to try and introduce the more egregious limitations again any time soon but they've both got a bit of a history of making weirdly oblivious mistakes so who knows... Thanks for the links btw, watching this stuff in 2020 is kinda fascinating.

@berfunkle: The best thing Phil Spencer has brought to Xbox for me has been the renewed focus on games. I hardly watch TV and there's a million ways I can do multimedia, I buy a games console purely for playing games.

I still don't buy as many digital games on consoles as I do on PC, but that's probably because I feel like PC games have more of a guarantee of working on the next thing I buy, rather than a fear of them disappearing overnight.

@berfunkle: Also Europe (except for France, Italy, Spain, The UK & Germany) had to wait a year before the Xbox One finally launched here as well. So if you wanted to play the next gen console games you could choose between the PS4 or... waiting a year. Also it was never clear to me if that whole home entertainment stuff would even work properly here. Kinect supported 8 languages i think. It all seemed very focused on the american market.

Yeah and Xbox is still fucking being buried in the court of public opinion over this too which is pretty hilarious to think about (not so much on gaming sites but check out Twitter in general for example to see that the System Wars have changed fronts.

So much can change in a short time and most people easily adapt to their environment and the possibilities that are present and conveniently accessed.

I think people will talk about it closer to launch, but if the DRM policies are the same as before, there might not be much of a discussion.

I see the purchase of a digital game as a purchase of a license, what I buy is product access. As long as I have guaranteed access to the game and there's a reasonable refund policy, I don't have an issue with buying games digitally. Both Steam and Epic have really good refund systems in place today (within 2 weeks, less than 2 hrs gameplay), and in the 10+ years I've been using Steam I've never had an issue with accessing the games (apart from the few times their site has been down, for various reasons). However, I'm hesitant to buy games digitally for my PS4, since the refund system is so limited or restricted. So I prefer disc if I buy for my PS4.

My impression is that 90% of gamers don't actually care about this issue at all, as far as PC gaming is concerned anyway. Sure, many of them chanted along when TotalBiscuit, Sterling or other brought this up with gusto. However, their supposed principles disappear just in time for the next major Steam sale or the next big free Epic store game. There was a time when I only bought DRM-free PC games, but the people who were vocal about DRM were always mixing politics into their agenda, so my commitment did not last very long since I didn't want to be associated with bigots.

You mean six years later and everything the same as its always been.

You have a 40min video of GB trying to figure out what MS was going to do, kinda encapsulates the issue in itself. MS wanted to convert every physical copy of a game into a digital version and for it to happen required an online check in, who wanted this? And the benfit for doing so would be family sharing and you might be able to trade in your digital games.

MS wrapped a load of small issues then poorly articulated their sales pitch.

While I've never had a license revoked, I have had games that were either pulled from Steam, or changed post-release due to music rights. That's not something that happens to physical releases, but I'm sure the rights holders would also love for it to apply there too.

@zombiepenguin9: You are right, that is the one thing PCs do a bit better. You generally get a 10-12 year run on PC games before Windows "FUBARs" their OS. Thankfully, DOSBox, GoG, and other ways have been made and YouTube now puts making the necessary step for nearly anyone to do step by step easier.

RetroArch and emulation cores are making playing old games easier for console games too. I am working on a RetroArch PC system now. I'm doing that because I think my PC will do a far better job emulating consoles than ANY of the console developers will do - outside of re-coding games. So, in a sense all road lead back to PC. ;-)

The counter argument being that people who own Mafia 2 or 3 are getting all the DLC and (for 2) a pretty major graphical update "for free". And it is a pretty "standard" approach for the overhauls and updates.

In the days of predominantly physical that would have never happened. It would have been easier to just sell the gotye as a different game entirely and have messes like Dragon's Dogma and most fighting games where the expandalone is basically the patched version that you need to buy again. Let alone the long running games where installing the wrong patch or forgetting an "optional" content pack meant you were probably better off starting from scratch.

DRM has a lot of nasty implications. But also, when tied to a content delivery system, it makes stuff like that a LOT easier and encourages the idea of "just exporting the assets again" as a way to drum up interest for a sequel or get some more sales

@gundato: That's not really due to physical, the architectures between consoles generations have been widley different requiring significant investment to port/enhance a game.

Look at backwards compatibility on the Xbox One performance and graphical improvements apply to both physical and digital, which will be true next gen for nearly every game.

People can vote with their wallet but I always thought that was an empty sentiment. I mean, am I against shitty working conditions and proliferating 100 hour work weeks? Absolutely not.. but I do want to play Last of Us 2 so..

As for DRM and digital games? Well I've gone a step beyond that and most games I've played this year have been via Game Pass, where I don't even own a digital license to play the game. I don't own any of the last 10 games I played, some of which I've really enjoyed, and I don't really feel the sting of that at all. This is of course partly due to my personal disinterest in replaying games. Once I finish something it is unlikely that I am realistically ever going to go back to it, even games I loved. Any time I think about playing something I already finished I think that I could be using that time to play something new instead and thats what I do.

The world is slowly moving in an all-digital direction, and I doubt there is much we can do to stop it. There are pros and cons to it which are very subjective depending on who you are and where you live. I love Game Pass and I prefer buying games digital because it works great for me. My friend in the Navy stuck on an aircraft carrier for several months out of the year would not benefit from digital at all. Ultimately it would be great if we had a choice going forward and a fair split between the two but realistically the advances of technology will edge the physical medium out of the market despite the fact that this will inconvenience a select user group. The sale of music CDs has fallen roughly 80% over the past decade in the United States and in similar numbers around the world. It's just how it goes.

@thepanzini: And consoles that do that also tend to have pretty strict DRM models in the sense that there are a decent number of handshakes to make sure you actually own the game you just downloaded (in this case the disc check).

The point is you aren't going to get a complete overhaul that you download from gamespy and install offline.