Remember when gaming was simple and fun?

When you put a disc or a cartridge in a a machine and it played?

When you could loan/sell said disc or cartridge to whoever you pleased?

When you didn't need a broadband internet connection to play a single player console game?

When the talking points about the next console generation were about how amazing the games looked and played instead of how convoluted the new DRM systems are?

When a new console generation meant a step forward in gaming experience instead of a step back?

I really hope that Sony takes a look at this backlash Microsoft is seeing and realizes that this is not the way to appeal to customers. We do not want this. And while console publishers may think they are entitled to pushing these anti consumer practices, all they are doing is pushing people away from gaming or towards PCs.

Nah

Anybody else want to post the "Petridge Farm remembers" clip from Futurama? No? Just me? Alright, then.

I sure don't.

no

nope

You can still buy old consoles and old games. They are pretty cool.

I wonder if people will still be able to say that in the near future.

Sony can't really do shit, if the publishers are demanding PC style DRM.

Thats why you should probably support Sony^^

Their E3 T-shirts XD

No.

I was a DOS and PC kid.

Commander Keen forever!

Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit rules!

They could. Publishers go where the market goes because they are greedy as fuck. If 50 million people bought the system with no DRM and 5 million bought the system with DRM, guess which one pubs would make games for?

For the longest time, PC games were treated like afterthoughts and publishers had the freedom to use all the DRM they wanted on PC. Why? Because console games made more money.

3rd parties can ignore Nintendo because 3rd party games do not sell but they can not ignore Sony. EA is punishing Sony with exclusive Xboxone games but you can really easy get them to change by supporting the PS4 in the end if they don't do the same bullshit.

I think you meant to post this in one of your other 5 ongoing threads

Dunno about you, but my 3DS is still simple and fun. And the only thing this thread is accomplishing for me, is making me think back nostalgically on all of the times I had to toy around with cartridges to get them working.

Blame Steam; fuckers.

Each day has me wanting to take my theoretical next-gen money and use it to acquire all the SNES gems I used to own or never played. I'd probably also start living in a cabin somewhere.

When all you needed to know was how to plow a field with oxen?

When your TV had 11 channels and simple-to-use dials?

When college students studied instead of staging protests against societal ills?

When people wrote letters by hand and used excellent penmanship and grammar?

When jazz music came along and destroyed our youth into drugs and violence?

When the government didn't keep records of your hair color and hat size?

Society is going down the toilet! We have to get back to basics! Down with the present! Reactionary forces, unite!

Yeah, except by appealing to a broad audience, Xbone is going to have a way bigger install base.

Do you really think MS would allow this? They aren't idiots, there are probably hundreds of legal documents saying this cannot happen. EA, Activison, and Ubi can't support MS putting DRM in their system then back out as soon as it fails.

Really getting annoyed of all these people posting simple answers to complex questions that none of us know nothing about.

@zombie2011: Has that ever happened? Has a company signed an exclusive contract to a system, wholly?

Besides, we already know Acti and Ubi are on board with both, the idea that they would just stop making games for the more successful platform doesn't work.

Ya'll want to come over and listen to these Spin Doctors cassettes I bought?

Well, yea. That's how capitalism works:

10 ACQUIRE MONEY.

20 GO TO 10.

Yeah this coming gen is the first one that I haven't really been looking forward to.

I don't like the direction the industry is going of late.

F2P, DLC, DM,Motion controls, none of it has changed gaming in ways I enjoy. It's not all bad though, achievements, online play, downloadable games are pretty rad.

NOPE.

EA is really pushing it and giving MS exclusive games we do not know about the rest. There will be a split for sure. But again if People buy a PS4 instead of the XBOX one publisher have to react to that.

This time it looks like it will be a battle and you really can chose with your wallet.

MY LAWN IS NOT AN APPROPRIATE VENUE FOR YOUR SHENANIGANS!

Hey, the Xbox One is shaping up to be an awful product but you can just avoid it - and avoid the people telling you that you cannot avoid it. It's not the end of the world.

People are weak

I'm really loving this Darji/connorthekewlkid/jdh5153 feud that is spilling over into all the threads. It's like a Wild West fight scene that starts in a saloon, guy gets thrown through a window into the street, fist fight continues throughout the stables, blacksmith, barbershop, general store, etc.

No, that's absurd. I've always loved paying the new price on a 5 year old game!

Hah, and that's if I even find a new copy!

Oh please, new consoles were always using crappy gimmicks to get people to buy them. Now, however, the audience is 20-30 years old not 14 year old boys where they could talk about how "the blast processing makes the graphics so much better!" And I find it funny how you all are freaking out about this yet I'd bet almost everyone here has used steam without a problem for many years. Technology is our friend.

Going to be honest I would love some of those things to come back

@sarge1445 said:

Wanting good grammatical skills is reactionary?

no

So like it still is?

It was pretty simple, and fun when I clicked Skyrim in Steam this morning and played it for a few hours.

Back in my day...! Whipper-snappers and what not!

Yes. yes I do.

For all the talk of "game design", from a design standpoint, a lot of games feature truly horrendous design these days. And they have stepped backward from the way things used to be.

Everytime my brother and I futz with the Xbox login profiles and whotnot for two player games we are like "THIS SUCKS."

Steve Jobs probably died from seeing the Xbox login process. It's absolute garbage.

I'm tired of bitching about it. The XBone isn't shaping up so well, the PS4 may or may not be very similar, and Darji is reminding me more and more of a trollish version of the hyper squirrel in Over the Hedge.

Ah, I'll just keep playing 3DS and PS2 and PC games and watch what happens.

I think a lot of gamers are confused about what constitutes a customer to publishers. Or any business, really.

Take coffee shops, for example. The guy who comes in for two seconds to get a $6 cup of coffee every day before work is a valued customer. The guy who brings his laptop into the shop, spreads out, does his work FROM the shop and only orders a 99 cent cup of coffee on which he asks two refills is NOT a valued customer. In fact, he's probably costs more than he is worth to the business. He is a liability.

Publishers are interested in alpha consumer gamers who make a lot of money and spend a lot of money. They want guys who buy 12 games a year and subscribe to services. Guys who are so busy they will pay to unlock content and whatnot.

Publishers are NOT interested in the 15 year old kid who gets 3 games a year, used, from gamestop. That kid is the coffee jerk drinker of gaming. None of his money goes back to the publisher and Microsoft is technically LOSING MONEY by selling him a console because they can't make that money back on software sales.

In short, publisher's don't care which console is has the most players. They care which console has the most alpha consumers they can cater to.

Hey guys, remember when this was a controller that could be used to play games?

Awww the good old days.

Support indie games then. Buy directly from them or pay for their stuff on HIB. That shit is DRM-free, usually does not require "gaming-grade" PC hardware, and none of the money goes to those "evil" mega-publishers.

Want the new Battlefield though? Then suck it up. Life is not meant to be fair.

I really wish this would happen but it won't.

That 13 year old fuck yelling about your mom on Xbox doesn't give a shit about DRM and his absentee fuck-tard of a parent that buys the games doesn't care about DRM. All they will see is shit like "the game from the makers of Modern Warfare is an XBONE exclusive." What happens if Madden is only on Xbox? Or something like GTA? What was the quote about Microsoft investing 1 billion into games for the Xbox one? I'm pretty sure 2k would take 200 mil to make GTA 6 an Xbox exclusive for example.

The "gaming" community snickered and laughed at Kinect much in this same fashion and that thing sold 20 million units no problem. The bottom line is all the assholes that gave Microsoft a free pass from shit like red rings, paying more for Xbox live, and things like Netflix behind the pay wall, are the reason Microsoft knows that the internet will piss and moan but in the end they can do what ever the fuck they want and you will still buy there shit.

Video games as we knew it are dead and it fucking sucks.

@jazgalaxy: I can agree that 1 customer on a closed system is more of a sure thing and more valued than 1 customer on a more open one, but my point is that at a certain volume those scales have to tip.


Also, why don't coffee shops just shut down the wifi and take out all of the tables if they only want a moving line?

@darji: It's gonna be soooooooo awkward for all them Sony fans when Sony says, "Remember all those non-hurdles? Well, there are some."

It's going to be interesting if Sony maintains a much lighter touch in terms of DRM and always-online, but I don't see it happening - they're bound to push their policies as far as they can.

I wonder how many of the people wishing for the 'good ol' days' complain whenever a retro indie game gets covered on the site. Same goes for the folks that accuse Patrick of having some sort bias against 'real' games.

Fuck no, I remember throwing controllers across the room and crying when Mike Tyson would wallop me.

Only if I can bring some Ace of Base along too.

@darji said:

Thats why you should probably support Sony^^

Their E3 T-shirts XD

Okay. Real Talk. Are you working for Sony? between this propoganda and your crusade against the Xbox One, I'm suspicious.

Sweet we'll jam.

Because, as you say, there is a tipping point. They want people to come in and stay and eat and drink. They want you to meet with your book club and order 12, 8 dollar drinks twice each.

Businesses really do want to accomodate their customers for the purpose of getting more revenue. But getting more money is their goal, and if ever they are doing something that isn't that, they are off message and off task. It's NICE to think that they are providing a service to the world for everyone to have more fun, but the reality of the situation is that they are only trying to make money.

Part of the reason why the industry keeps saying that gamers are getting older isn't because gamers actually ARE getting older, new gamers are being born all the time and a greater percentage of them are playing games, after all. They say the age of gamers is getting older because the ones they want to chase are getting older. Those being the ones who make the most money and have the most money to spend.

The perfect Xbox gamer, to microsoft, is a single, socially disconnected, college educated, young professional male. If you're not that, they don't really want you all that much. That's why we've seen the everyone but Nintendo essentially give up on making games for kids, aside from a few lower budget "family" games that come out.