Game Company Ethics

[Amadeus]

A week ago Microsoft revealed that their new console would require a perpetual internet connection.  There are very few topics upon which all of gamer-dom agrees, and one of them is that a constant internet connection is a load of bollocks.  Microsoft knew that full well going into E3, but made the policy anyway.  One of their executives even said that if gamers want to play offline, they can buy an xbox 360.

 

Fast forward one week, and the PS4 is outselling (in pre-orders) the new xbox 2-1, and Microsoft decides to say JK about the always online feature of their new machine.  They've also backed away from the feature that would prevent gamers from buying and selling used games.  While this is certainly a victory for anyone who enjoys video games, it got me thinking about Final Fantasy XIV.

 

When Square Enix released a product that tanked, they threw a tremendous amount of time and resources behind fixing that product and keeping their customers happy at all costs.  They got a whole new team and rebuilt that product from the ground up, then decided to give it away for free to people who'd bought the first one.  Those who stuck it out and supported the company in the interim even get a handfull of extra goodies.

 

Now think about what would have happene if EA had been the helm of FF14.  The dev team would have been whittled down to a skeleton crew in weeks, and the game would have shut down in a few months.  They'd put the project in a box and never speak of it again.  

 

I know Sony isn't perfect, and neither is SE, but I have to say, recently they've been doing pretty well in my book.

[Vanschiver]

Agreed~ PS4 ftw

[Rhostel]

Microsoft can go blow themselves. I don't regret going with a 360 over a PS3 this generation, but even with their change of heart, there are craploads of issues I have with the Xbox One compared to the PS4.

• It's still got a mandatory Kinect being all creepy, that I don't even want any of the features of.
  
• It's still more expensive due to that Kinect being bundled with the console.
  
• It's still less powerful than the PS4.
  
• Microsoft are still unfriendly to indie developers.
  
• I already have a Vita and am pleased at the interactions it will have with the PS4, but nothing like it seems to be in the works at MS.
  
• Cloud-based, and possibly emulated, backwards compatibility is better than none at all.
  
• I do not care about multimedia features, especially ones that are useless in Australia. Having them and acknowledging it is fine, pushing them is terrible.
  
• The reversal also means MS are scrapping some of the cool sharing features they were planning to implement, even though Sony is doing some stuff in that direction.
  
• You still have to go online just once before you can ever use your Xbox One. That just seems petty.
  

 

And I could go on.

 

But yeah. Square Enix have been kind of amazeballs the last couple years. Well, except for complaining of Tomb Raider underperforming as one of the scapegoats for their financial difficulties on the one hand, and celebrating how it's the fastest selling game in the franchise on the other. That's been kind of a dick move.

[Poeros]

When I heard about the new Xbox, all I could think about were the books I read in high school: Fahrenheit 451 and Big Brother. I still think that even with the "changes" they made in regards to getting games.

[Amadeus]

To be fair, the fastest selling tomb raider game isn't a hard record to beat.  Those games have been pretty terrible over the years.

[Yahdo]

1984...... That is all.

[Challoux Baudrier]

It would seem to me more and more gaming production houses are teaming up with software publishing companies that distribute their software on a DRM platform effectively wiping out any chance of ever being able to play a game without the use of internet ever again. EA totally destroyed SimCity 4 with this concept as a prime example of how a DRM platform can take a game that was once fun and make you want to chunk it over the Grand Canyon.

[Amadeus]

I had a good laugh at the sim city 4 debachle.  I hate EA and love to see them fail.