3 Idiotic Ideas Surrounding the Next Generation

3. Locking console games to online accounts is fine because Steam is an awesome digital platform

Don’t be retarded.  Valve is a privately owned company.  They develop some of the best games of all time, and their business practices are legendarily customer-friendly.  Here are some things they do, which Microsoft absolutely will not:

  • Steamplay — Buy a game on one platform, and it’s free on any other platform that carries Steam (PC, Mac, Linux)
  • Offline Mode — Single player games can be played while in “Offline Mode” without needing to “check in” and verify that you’re not a dirty thief.  Valve could literally cease to exist and your game would not be affected.
  • Backup system — Compress and backup files so you can burn them onto disks, meaning you won’t need to download them in the future, just log in once
  • Massive sales — 70% off an entire publisher’s catalog, at least once a year?
  • Free in every way, runs quietly and efficiently in the background
  • Very robust community profiles, as well as groups/guilds system
  • Security
  • Constant innovation because PC doesn’t have to wait eight years for their next “generation” to add features and keep people happy
  • Big modding community and officially supported fan workshops
  • Aggressive pursuit of independent developers and fan-supported games
  • No shareholders or CEOs to fuck everything up for you

Saying that the DRM of the next-gen machines is the equivalent of Steam is like saying it’s a great idea to hire drug-addled homeless ex-convicts to protect your children while you’re at work, because you really like when your dear old grandmother is great with them.  They’ll both accept the job, but only one of them will make sure your children are alive when you get home (and they’ll do it for free because they actually give a damn).

Publishers such as EA have proven that they only understand how to fuck the customer over and laugh in our faces.  Have you ever tried using Origin?  And now we’re supposed to believe that they’ll be good to us, if only we buy an expensive console on which they’ll be free to call the shots?  Stop comparing it to Steam.  How ignorant are you?  “Maybe if we just give them what they want, they’ll turn around and be nice in return!”  Is that what you think?  Does their history mean nothing to you?  They’re doing it right now.  It’s not a new Activision or a new Microsoft doing these things, it’s the same assholes we’ve been sick of for the last 5 years.

“Trojan horse” is already on the lips of game pundits everywhere.  Why?  Because they’ll fucking lie to your face to get you to buy these systems, only to turn around and give you the shaft.  Bait-and-switch is another term for it.  With the PS3, Sony sold me on the ability to install another operating system on the PS3 — which I actually used and was enjoying for a while — when turned suddenly and without explanation turned around and disabled the feature in a patch.  They also sold me on backward compatibility, but that disappeared too as soon as my system died and I had to buy a new version.  So now we’re buying “HD remakes” of old games instead of just being able to play the originals themselves!  Meanwhile, Steam has been getting better and better, and I can still go back and play Half-Life no problemo.  I wish all games were on Steam.  I don’t want consoles, I want a good controller for my PC and a big cup of iced tea.  Your comparisons betray your stupidity.

Tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.

  • Archives