S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Requires a ‘Permanent Internet Connection’

Motoki · October 10, 2011

Alrik Fassbauer said:
Yeah, that some things do exist doesn't automaticcally mean it's good.
Like slavery, for example.

Oh come on now guys. Slavery? Really?

There's good points to cloud gaming too. One I can see is that if the damned consoles go cloud then we can stop being held back by their shitty 2005 hardware. Most AAA games these days are console ports and while the PC versions may get tweaks here and there, the games are designed around the lowest common denominator.

DoctorNarrative · October 10, 2011

Motoki said:
Oh come on now guys. Slavery? Really?

It's not about comparing them on a moral level, it's just a great example that things accepted by society at large are not always right.

JDR13 · October 10, 2011

Tragos said:
I will be busy playing Stalker 2 after it is properly cracked and it will be properly cracked sooner or later .

In the future none will be able to play games without first solving +orc's riddles and understanding Zen in cracking !

If S2 is as good as STALKER: SoC then I'll be playing it regardless. I generally never crack games anyways, unless it's to solve a technical issue, which would be rare.

People are acting like it's going to blow up their system or something.

skavenhorde · October 11, 2011

Not blow up, but I'm not paying 40 bucks to get on some freaking cloud.

Let's put it this way, I'm in my thirties and I still play games from twenty or more years ago. There were some problems in the beginning getting older DOS games working, but now that's fixed with Dosbox. I expect I'll be playing games when I'm 60 if I last that long. There are no guarantees I'll be able to play the games that have part of the information on their server. So I won't pay for this.

If they drop the price to 5 dollars then I won't care if it is a cloud or not, but I am sure as hell not paying full price or even half for this BS.

badmofo · October 11, 2011

DoctorNarrative said:
It's not about comparing them on a moral level, it's just a great example that things accepted by society at large are not always right.

A tad dramatic though for mine.

Forced online connections / streaming are just signs of progress in my eyes, and when I think of the amazing progress I've seen since the days of downloading shareware from a BBS and how good we have it now in comparison - bring it on I say.

DoctorNarrative · October 11, 2011

badmofo said:
Forced online connections / streaming are just signs of progress in my eyes, and when I think of the amazing progress I've seen since the days of downloading shareware from a BBS and how good we have it now in comparison - bring it on I say.

Complete corporate control just bothers me to the core, for several reasons.

booboo · October 11, 2011

DoctorNarrative said:
Complete corporate control just bothers me to the core, for several reasons.

I completely agree. It may be inevitable, but they're not doing it for our benefit - they're doing it for the usual corporate reason of maximizing profits. I would hope that people at least realize that and don't gush about how wonderful this 'innovation' is and how it will make the world a better place. I have already passed on all Ubisoft's recent games, plan to pass on Diablo 3 and will pass on this too. It is rather depressing how many people seem happy to cede their rights to some faceless corporation.

badmofo · October 11, 2011

booboo said:
they're not doing it for our benefit - they're doing it for the usual corporate reason of maximizing profits.

Of course they're not doing it for our benefit! They want our money, why else would they be spending the massive amount of time and money it takes to create a game? There's no conspiracy here.

DArtagnan · October 11, 2011

Yeah, I'm having a hard time understanding the issue.

Developers spend a significant amount of effort and resources developing games, and then they dare to want to control the amount of it that gets stolen.

Want their online-only game? Buy it. Don't want it? Don't buy it. No one is forcing anyone to do anything.

JDR13 · October 11, 2011

skavenhorde said:
If they drop the price to 5 dollars then I won't care if it is a cloud or not, but I am sure as hell not paying full price or even half for this BS.

Ah... so you would pay $5 but not $40?

I'm sorry, but that just seems kind of weak to me. You're acting like you're morally opposed to it, but you'll still take the candy if it's cheap enough.

Motoki · October 11, 2011

JDR13 said:
Ah… so you would pay $5 but not $40?

I'm sorry, but that just seems kind of weak to me. You're acting like you're morally opposed to it, but you'll still take the candy if it's cheap enough.

That seems to have been the case with many people and Steam, or at least their initial 'well okay it's cheap so I'll try it' purchases.

Cheap games get people to try something new out. Then once they see it is not the antichrist that will ruin their lives they'll usually move up to regular price for games they really want.

Gorath · October 11, 2011

JDR13 said:
Ah… so you would pay $5 but not $40?

I'm sorry, but that just seems kind of weak to me. You're acting like you're morally opposed to it, but you'll still take the candy if it's cheap enough.

No, it's a matter of pricing in disadvantages and risks.

JDR13 · October 11, 2011

Gorath said:
No, it's a matter of pricing in disadvantages and risks.

I think the quality of the game should determine that, not the DRM. Especially when the possibility of the DRM being a "risk" is only speculation.

Gorath · October 11, 2011

JDR13 said:
I think the quality of the game should determine that, not the DRM. Especially when the possibility of the DRM being a "risk" is only speculation.

In this discussion DRM is an assumption, not speculation.

I think the whole package should evaluated, including CP and DRM. The game's quality is only one vital part of it.

My opinion:
If the companies insist on SaaS and DRM, they're going to get what I perceive they give me. If I can effectively only rent a game instead of buy it, I'm going to pay a rent, not a much higher purchase price for a copy. Simply because I have to expect them to terminate their service at any moment. I'll expect the worst and price it in before I buy.
So if a game uses any kind of DRM - this includes Steam - I won't pay full price. I can wait, prices are going down quickly. DRM, always on, forced GfW, forced Origin, no used resale ... I'll put a price on each of these and subtract it from the price I would be willing to pay.

JDR13 · October 12, 2011

We're assuming the DRM is going to be present. We're speculating that it could cause the game to be unplayable sometime in the future.

I guess we just have different views on worth. I paid $40 for the original Stalker in 2007, and imo I've already received that amount of value from the game. If it suddenly became unplayable tomorrow, I wouldn't be upset over the $40 I spent four years ago.

curious · October 12, 2011

well said

i do agree that not being able to play a game in the future is a negative, but if you factor in that usually its os issues or other hardware issues that cause it that's a bit of a longshot. also in 5 or 10 years from now i'll have such a catelogue of games and backlog that replaying games will be a thing of the past as it becomes scarcer for me even now with the large amount of gaming per most weeks i'm still able to do. with kids coming in the next couple of years most likely this issue will be as small as fucking pluto.

badmofo · October 12, 2011

curious said:
if you factor in that usually its os issues or other hardware issues that cause it that's a bit of a longshot.

One of my hobbies is building period hardware to play old games on, so if today's games have disappeared off the face of the earth in 20 years time because the evil greedy corporates only streamed the game for 5 years and then decided to hoard the 0's and 1's in a mega vault of doom until the end of time - then I might be somewhat disappointed.

But where there's a will there's a way, and I trust the angry nerds of the interwebs to find a way.

DoctorNarrative · October 12, 2011

JDR13 said:
We're assuming the DRM is going to be present. We're speculating that it could cause the game to be unplayable sometime in the future.

I guess we just have different views on worth. I paid $40 for the original Stalker in 2007, and imo I've already received that amount of value from the game. If it suddenly became unplayable tomorrow, I wouldn't be upset over the $40 I spent four years ago.

For me it's less about that and more about being so morally opposed to the game being able to no longer exist that I cannot support the idea with my money.

DoctorNarrative · October 12, 2011

badmofo said:
One of my hobbies is building period hardware to play old games on, so if today's games have disappeared off the face of the earth in 20 years time because the evil greedy corporates only streamed the game for 5 years and then decided to hoard the 0's and 1's in a mega vault of doom until the end of time - then I might be somewhat disappointed.

But where there's a will there's a way, and I trust the angry nerds of the interwebs to find a way.

If the games are streamed only and never exist on hardware outside the corporation I see no possible way to secure longevity for those titles. That is why stream content through a persistent connection is the only DRM I care about boycotting.

Alrik Fassbauer · October 12, 2011

badmofo said:
One of my hobbies is building period hardware to play old games on, so if today's games have disappeared off the face of the earth in 20 years time because the evil greedy corporates only streamed the game for 5 years and then decided to hoard the 0's and 1's in a mega vault of doom until the end of time - then I might be somewhat disappointed.

Games will vanish as well because there just doesn't exist any emulator for DirectX.

DOD games, however, will be playable - assumed the appropriate controllers still exist, then - until the end of this century, at least.

But this "streaming for only 5 years" is also a display of another thing : Games are considered a mass product by them. Use once, then throw it away, what's the term ? A product for a one-time usage. "Ex & hopp", as we say here.

This is in direct opposite to the often-said claim that "video games are art".

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Requires a ‘Permanent Internet Connection’

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