[acemanwise]

NEOGAMES, on 19 March 2012 - 02:59 PM, said:

"By purchasing games through these digital dealers, there’s never a concern about losing what’s rightfully yours"...that's the biggest crock of ____ I've ever heard.....I should've seen this topic sooner.

Your comment seems founded on personal experience. Do you wish to share?

[acemanwise]

EA server shutdowns another example of why online passes are a bad idea (editorial)
source:venturebeat.com

Quote

A publisher phasing out support for some of its less popular games is nothing new, and odds are many of the titles on the list won’t be terribly missed. But what is notable is that at least one of them, MMA, features EA’s Online Pass, a single-use code needed to access bonus or multiplayer content. The codes are included in new game purchases, but those who like to buy used must hand over an extra $10 if they want to play with their friends over the Internet. Seen by many as nothing more than a cash grab by a greedy publisher, Online Pass remains a controversial and unpopular form of digital rights management, especially when incidents like the server shutdown highlight its flaws.

It’s also worth noting that Boom Blox and Create heavily tout online features in their marketing. Boom Blox calls itself the “ultimate social gaming experience” and has versus, co-op, and team play modes, while Create allows players to share user-generated content over the Internet. The shutdown will effectively cripple a large portion of both of these kid-friendly games, but unsuspecting parents probably won’t know that when they pluck a copy out of the bargain bin at GameStop.

Then there’s The Saboteur, a third person action-adventure with no multiplayer features. Players will no longer have access to a piece of downloadable content called “The Midnight Show” once servers are taken offline. The DLC contained gambling mini-games and topless dancers, and while I’m sure gamers won’t miss a couple of digital boobies and blackjack tables, its loss sets an alarming precedent — the permanent removal of single player DLC.

http://venturebeat.c...idea-editorial/

[NEOGAMES]

acemanwise, on 19 March 2012 - 10:49 PM, said:

NEOGAMES, on 19 March 2012 - 02:59 PM, said:

"By purchasing games through these digital dealers, there’s never a concern about losing what’s rightfully yours"...that's the biggest crock of ____ I've ever heard.....I should've seen this topic sooner.

Your comment seems founded on personal experience. Do you wish to share?

I wasn't thinking about my personal experience but I do have one. I guess it has to do with the licensing that comes with DL content.

I can tell you when I bought a new 360 Slim I was prompted to transfer the content from my original 'Box (no secret right?) but for some reason even after going through the process, many of my video's don't play...at all. Some games only have access to.. or are limited to single player mode and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is no longer on XBLA. Midway lost their right's to the game...WB took over and had content pulled.

If you purchased UMK3 and deleted it for some reason or simply forgot about it....then remembered....and went to get it back...you can't. It's gone.

..and I used the MS DOWNLOAD HISTORY database's.

[acemanwise]

Kinect watches sex act, but is anyone secretly viewing?
source:msxbox-world.com

Quote

Kinect's cameras are always on when Xbox boots up, but sometimes this can have potential consequences.

Due to reasons unexplained, my girlfriend and I got a little amorous this morning and decided to do the deed, no holds barred as an early wake up call to start what should now be a glorious day. It's something that happens often, although on this occasion, something hit home. Normally Kinect automatically switches on when the bedroom Xbox boots up. But usually Xbox isn't switched on until later on in the day. Xbox and Kinect were actually left on last night with Capcom's latest offering sat idle, however, something dawned. Kinect could actually see everything that was going on and with recent discoveries that a device is on sale which covers kinect to support your privacy (Pritect Sensor Cover) the alarm bells started ringing.

http://www.msxbox-wo...ly-viewing.html

[acemanwise]

Battlefield 3 PS3 Server Rental Options and Prices Detailed
source:mp1st.com

Quote

Now that both Battlefield 3′s client side and server side are synced up with patch 1.04, prices and details of server rentals have been revealed.

Update: Here are the prices in American dollars:

1 day: $1.49
7 days: $6.99
30 days: $24.99
90 days: $64.99

Original Story: Renting private servers is now available to all Battlefield 3 players on PS3, and can be done through the PSN. There are four rental durations, 1 day, 7 days, 1 month and 3 months. The prices are in Polish Zloty as renting servers hasn’t been made available in all territories at the time of writing.

(US dollar conversions are in parenthesis) Remember the prices in American dollars below are not final as they are based on conversions, we’ll update the article when the final prices are up on the American/Canadian PSN.

1 day: 5 zł ($1.62)
7 days: 26 zł ($8.40)
1 month: 89 zł ($28.77)
3 month: 218 zł. ($70.46)

Full Story... http://mp1st.com/201...rices-detailed/

[acemanwise]

Study: Fastest Average Broadband Speeds in the US by City
source:gamersnexus.net
http://www.gamersnex...t-speed-map.png

Quote

Many ISPs measure in Mb, or megabits (or falsely label them as MB), but the units are easily converted: 1Mb (megabit) = 128 KB (kilobytes).

For ease of reading, we've given the full listing of cities its own page in this post -- continue to page 2 for the list of many more cities.

While we don't have the full study in our hands quite yet, we do know a little bit about the testing procedures (though methodologies remain unreleased): Pando tested "download speeds" in the USA's largest cities -- defined as those with populations of 500,000 or greater -- and otherwise locations that are considered technological hotspots (Austin, Seattle, and Chandler come to mind).

For cities, we see that Austin, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and New York rank in the top -- somewhat unsurprisingly, while El Paso, TX recorded one of the worst speed outputs, clocking in at 483KB/s.

States saw similar performance, with the East coast dominating the board: RI, DE, NJ, MA, and MD were all 850KB/s or greater, counterweighted by ID, OK, MT, KY, WY, and several others in the sub-500KB/s spectrum.

I see that many of you are based in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, and Charlotte, each pegged at 665KB/s, 828KB/s, 841KB/s, and 560KB/s, respectively. Remember, these are average speeds; that means you may have lower, higher, or, well, the average. The best news is that you probably have options available in the faster locations -- some of us are limited to a single, throttling, slow option -- others, myself included, aren't even ranked. That explains a lot.

More Cities... http://www.gamersnex...peeds-in-the-us

[acemanwise]

Rumor: Major publishers to use Captcha to curb piracy
source:tbreak.com

http://tbreak.com/me...ptcha-logo2.png

Quote

Internet’s popular (and hated) automated spam protection system, Captcha, will be used by major video game publishers to curb piracy, an industry source told us today.

“You thought activation-DRMs were annoying? Wait till you see this,” the source said.

The ‘Captcha Gate’, as it is internally known, will also entail a new form of Internet-based DRM that will require users to make their first save on a cloud server provided by the publisher. This will necessitate the need of an active Internet connection on the first boot. After the cloud save is made and the authentication completed, users will be able to save on the hard disk as normal, however they will still be required to download a small patch file before they can do so, every time. This patch file will “tell” the game how to save on the hard disk and will delete itself after the save is made and/or the game is shutdown.

http://tbreak.com/me...to-curb-piracy/

[coastie65]

acemanwise, on 31 March 2012 - 07:50 AM, said:

Rumor: Major publishers to use Captcha to curb piracy
source:tbreak.com

http://tbreak.com/me...ptcha-logo2.png

Quote

Internet’s popular (and hated) automated spam protection system, Captcha, will be used by major video game publishers to curb piracy, an industry source told us today.

“You thought activation-DRMs were annoying? Wait till you see this,” the source said.

The ‘Captcha Gate’, as it is internally known, will also entail a new form of Internet-based DRM that will require users to make their first save on a cloud server provided by the publisher. This will necessitate the need of an active Internet connection on the first boot. After the cloud save is made and the authentication completed, users will be able to save on the hard disk as normal, however they will still be required to download a small patch file before they can do so, every time. This patch file will “tell” the game how to save on the hard disk and will delete itself after the save is made and/or the game is shutdown.

http://tbreak.com/me...to-curb-piracy/

Why don't they just go after the pirates and quite messing things up for the legitimate gamer? When CDPR ( CD Projekt Red ) released their games The Witcher and The Witcher 2, Atari saw fit to add DRM. It didn't take CDPR long to rlease a patch that eliminated the DRM and you could play the game without the disk in the drive. CDPR estimates that 1,000,000 copies of The Witcher 2 were pirated and they sold at at least that many legally.

[acemanwise]

coastie65 wrote:

Quote

"Why don't they just go after the pirates and quite messing things up for the legitimate gamer?"

We are the pirates. Don't you see? These companies consider used game retailers (and those that buy from them) the true pirates of their software. Think about it. The used game industry, and their consumers, have cost them more money in lost sales than any basement thief. The pirates they want us to think they are targeting are only a fraction of the overall problem. The only difference between the used game industry and a pirate is that one group has the legal right to do it....while the other group does not.

Their goal is to

1) Hook everyone into an online subscription service in order to play video games.

2) Kill the used game industry.

3) Slow down the pirates.

This post has been edited by acemanwise: 31 March 2012 - 09:28 AM

[acemanwise]

"Respect for all gamers" an article dedicated to every publisher
source:kasasensei.canalblog.com

Quote

How to get some respect back from the crowd

Step 1. Release finished games.
There are games absolutely unplayable from scratch and they will be so much pain in the ass when we'll try to play it again in the future. We prefer waiting over getting an nonworking pile of crap. Release it when it's really done, not in a beta state.

Step 2. Ensure us, that you won't deny any multiplayer activities until we came to the next generation.
There are so many games which get online killed because some heavy foot publisher don't want players to keep games and communities alive. You want us to pay an Online Pass to assure you some cash for the online services? Okay, I can understand, I'm not supporting that, but I can definitely understand. But do not turn off multiplayer until we pass to another generation. And when you really want to stop hosting anything, patch it to let us play and host with any way we can. Why not making LAN support back? No online authentication for that, the "disk checking security" is already enough to secure 99% of gamers that they won't try to hack it to play in local multiplayer.

Step 3. No more Day 1 DLC.
You got something already ready for take off? Put in on the disk, for free. Stop with the scam. In the future we won't be able to get our DLC, limited editions content and exclusive retailers DLC, because the servers hosting or authenticating all of that will be down.

Step 4. No more Disk Locked Content.
It's on the disk, we have already payed for that. Let us play with all the content.

Step 5. Put the unlock-able content back.
Skins, animations, stages, cars, tracks, songs... Please let us finish the game or some achievements and get something in return. I don't want to throw my credit card number in the game's menu to unlock anything. I'm not asking to put big DLC for free, but a gloomy pink pant skin for my favorite fighter should definitely not cost me the price of an iPad game.

Step 6. No more cheat packages on marketplaces.
There are publishers releasing some cheat packs on the different marketplaces, granting access to every unlock-able content instantaneously. This is ruining the online experience, even for early buyers. This must end. It has no point to exist.

Step 7. No DLC available later to see the real ending.
Make an ending for your game. We want to start, go trough and finish our games and get a real feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. A 100 GamerScore points achievement or a gold trophy is not what we want. Achievement and trophies must stay as an indicator of what you did and what did not in a game. It's not and must never become the only goal of finishing a game.
Another point is, if there's already a proper ending in the game, there's no need to make another one. Players aren't happy with the current ending? Too bad, but that's the way games are done since the dawn of times. What are the same people doing when they don't like a movie's ending? Take the phone and call Georges Lucas to edit it? Okay that's a bad example, but you get the point.

Step 8. No more Online pass that refuses to let our family and friends play with their account under the same roof.
We all have children, brothers, sisters, friends or companions who maybe want to try that game online. Asking us to pay a fee to let them play with a brand new game is non sense. Consoles must stay friendly for everyone in the family and close friends. You are not fighting piracy by doing that, only annoying legit customers with a shitty connexion who can't do anything about it.

Step 9. No more 1 sub, 1 account for Xbox Live and Playstation Plus.
If we accept to pay a little more to get nice features, don't try to push us too far. 1 subscription for all the accounts on 1 console is enough. Pretending the contrary is nothing but a lie.

Step 10. Put some free stuff with trophies and achievements for all games.
Not only ingame gofts, but also Home and XBL Avatar stuff and Premium theme as well. It's always an nice gift to get for the completion of a game or a particularly hard achievement. Ubisoft is doing it right for the most part with their Uplay system.
Free sound track on disk is a really nice feature too, especially when the soundtrack is absolutely amazing (Quantic Dream, Heavy Rain)

Step 11-15... http://kasasensei.ca...9/23882533.html

[acemanwise]

FFD: Would you buy a console that locked out used games?
source:lazygamer.net

Quote

The next generation consoles from both Microsoft and Sony are rumoured to include technology that’ll limit – and possibly even downright abolish the sale of used games. In the process, it’ll also nix the ability to swop games between friends.

Platform owners might ostensibly accomplish this by forcing customers to activate games over the internet – tying them to a single account. This is pretty much how PC games operate – so it’s nothing new for PC gamers. The difference here is that there’s a pretty big price gap between the cost of PC and console games. That extra cost has usually been offset by the ability to trade games in, or by purchasing them second hand.

http://www.lazygamer...out-used-games/

[acemanwise]

Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops Servers Closing Today
source:metalgearsolid.nl

Quote

Kojima Productions has announced that today, on March 30, 2012, 18:00:00 (JST), the servers for Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and Portable Ops Plus will be closed, making it no longer possible to play the PSP titles online.

http://metalgearsolid.nl/?p=1161

[acemanwise]

Zipper Interactive

Quote

"After 17 years it’s time to head off into the sunset. A sincere thank you to all our fans for everything you've done for us. Farewell."

https://twitter.com/...863537443340288

This post has been edited by acemanwise: 31 March 2012 - 09:57 AM

[coastie65]

acemanwise, on 31 March 2012 - 09:45 AM, said:

FFD: Would you buy a console that locked out used games?
source:lazygamer.net

Quote

The next generation consoles from both Microsoft and Sony are rumoured to include technology that’ll limit – and possibly even downright abolish the sale of used games. In the process, it’ll also nix the ability to swop games between friends.

Platform owners might ostensibly accomplish this by forcing customers to activate games over the internet – tying them to a single account. This is pretty much how PC games operate – so it’s nothing new for PC gamers. The difference here is that there’s a pretty big price gap between the cost of PC and console games. That extra cost has usually been offset by the ability to trade games in, or by purchasing them second hand.

http://www.lazygamer...out-used-games/

Greed, that's the bottom line. Some people can't afford to buy a new game and will wait for them to show up used and some of the more popular console titles will still go for up to $39.99 and possibly more. The used game industry such as GameStop has been a thorn in their side for some time. Instead of trying to kill gaming altogether, maybe they should think about getting into it themselves.

[LiveBrianD]

I'm sure there are plenty of people who won't (or can't) pay $40-60 for a new game. For them, it's either bittorrent or buying used. What's wrong with used games anyway? You can do that for just about anything else. If I buy a game, I should be able to sell it to someone when I'm done so they can play it. In fact, because DRM with a lot of games makes it so difficult to play by the rules, I simply pirate a lot of games instead. It's kinda ironic that the pirates are the ones that DON'T get bothered by anti-piracy measures most of the time (once one guy cracks the activation, it becomes easy for everyone to do it too). lol

[acemanwise]

The Real Cost of Used Games
source:gamesindustry.biz

Quote

The real cost of used games is the death of single player gaming. How do I stop churn? I implement multiplayer and attempt to keep my disc with my consumer playing online against their friends. It works wonderfully for Call of Duty - no doubt it can work wonderfully for me. The problem is, at what cost? Countless millions of dollars would be the answer. Let's take a great example, one of my favorite game series released on this generation - Uncharted. What on Earth was the point of taking the completely single player experience of Uncharted 1 and bolting on an entirely new game to Nathan Drake's second adventure? The multiplayer game (brilliantly executed as one would expect of the Naughty Dog team) had absolutely nothing to do with the single player experience, and from my perspective had absolutely zero interest from me as a consumer, and I'm not alone in that. I hate to think what it cost to make, refine, balance and tune - but I can guarantee it added a whole lot of zeroes to the budget, and made the P&L look a lot more challenging. And it's all aimed at stopping the game churn. Now a lot of people probably derived a lot of enjoyment out of it, and in Uncharted's case it seemed to have no material effect on the quality of the single player experience - but I'd say Uncharted is most certainly the outlier in this because few people have the resources of Sony and Naughty Dog.

http://www.gamesindu...t-of-used-games

[acemanwise]

Capcom's Better Business Bureau Rating Drops Due To DLC Fiasco
source:cinemablend.com

Quote

Effectively, the company's rating has dropped down three whole grades from an A+ down to a B. They now have more than 42 closed complaints with 40 of those being resolved with the assistance of the Better Business Bureau and more than 36 complaints closed within the last 12 months. This is up from the company's previous 10 complaints as of April 3rd, as reported by JoyStiq .

Originally we reported about gamers who came forward and were willing to work with us to help expose Capcom's shady practices by printing their Better Business Bureau responses from Capcom online. This included Capcom's first response to disc-locked content, as well as Capcom's second response regarding the lack of the pair-play feature for the Xbox 360. I'm sure having to pay for the ending to Asura's Wrath also may have had something to do with it, too.

http://www.cinemable...asco-41305.html

[acemanwise]

EA Caught Using Automated Bots to Support Their Game's Boycott Campaign
source:msxbox-world.com

Quote

Electronic Arts has seemingly been caught utilizing automated bots in order to support a boycott campaign pertaining to one of their titles.

The campaign against EA is due to the company approving a same-sex romance story in BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic. A Reddit user managed to view the support it was receiving and it seems the publisher and BioWare's parent company are taking the matter into their own hands.

Click here to view the image in question.

EA were recently named the worst company in America by Consumerist.

What are your thoughts on this apparent debacle surrounding EA regarding the use of automated bots?

http://www.msxbox-wo...t-campaign.html

[acemanwise]

Rumors Suggest the Next Xbox and Playstation Consoles Are All About Controlling Consumers
source:forbes.com

Quote

Despite the fact that both Sony and Microsoft have yet to actually say anything about a next generation of consoles, rumors are swirling around the internet about what gamers can expect from the companies’ next offerings. Much of the chatter revolves around the hardware, which is, after all, the main reason for building a new console. But other details are starting to paint a distinct picture. Internet connections, digital rights management and used games restrictions all point to a common theme — when the next consoles drop, both Sony and Microsoft want to be able to keep their consumers under control.

http://www.forbes.co...ling-consumers/

[acemanwise]

EA Updates Origin Account Policy, You Can Now Access Your Games While Banned
source: cinemablend.com

Quote

One of the biggest issues involving Origin has been centered around the inaccessibility of entitlements, DLC and games when your account gets banned. Well, EA has addressed this issue and updated their policy statement regarding Origin accounts at their official website.

An EA support rep notified us that as of March 8th you no longer lose all entitlements, DLC or access to single-player content when suspended or banned from your Origin account. Apparently the notice arriving a month later after the policy has been updated was due to EA possibly making sure they had all their EULAs, LGs and TOSs covered? Anyways, that's at least some good news for those not very fond of EA's digital distribution service.

According to the updated account suspension policy...

Quote

"If you find yourself with a disabled account, please note that you can still play EA games in single-player mode. For PC games you will need to enable Origin's offline mode to play games with a disabled account. Go to the settings tab in Origin (the gear icon) and select Go Offline. "

http://www.cinemable...nned-41417.html