Don Mattrick Leaves Microsoft

Yes folks, in a move that's sure to break the hearts of so many, Don Mattrick, who succeeded Peter Moore in leading the Xbox division of Microsoft, has quit to pursue a job with Zynga.

While in past years my gripes with Mattrick would have been rather unimportant on the grand scale, based mostly around the homogenization of games development at Microsoft Studios, the fact that he was head of the division when they tried to push forth with an awful DRM platform which would have mostly fucked over the Xbox customer base, all the while displaying incredible arrogance and condescension, leads me without any hesitation to say that he shouldn't let the door hit him in the ass on his way out of Redmond.

So farewell to you Mr. Mattrick, you won't be missed.

Gamers: FLAWLESS VICTORY!!

Today Microsoft shocked me and most everyone else by posting the following on Xbox.com: 

"Last week at E3, the excitement, creativity and future of our industry was on display for a global audience.

For us, the future comes in the form of Xbox One, a system designed to be the best place to play games this year and for many years to come. As is our heritage with Xbox, we designed a system that could take full advantage of advances in technology in order to deliver a breakthrough in game play and entertainment. We imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games. We believe in the benefits of a connected, digital future.

Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback. I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One.

You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your discretion is of incredible importance to you. Also important to you is the freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world. 

So, today I am announcing the following changes to Xbox One and how you can play, share, lend, and resell your games exactly as you do today on Xbox 360. Here is what that means: 

An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360. 

Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360. 

In addition to buying a disc from a retailer, you can also download games from Xbox Live on day of release. If you choose to download your games, you will be able to play them offline just like you do today. Xbox One games will be playable on any Xbox One console -- there will be no regional restrictions. 

These changes will impact some of the scenarios we previously announced for Xbox One. The sharing of games will work as it does today, you will simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold. Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray. 

We appreciate your passion, support and willingness to challenge the assumptions of digital licensing and connectivity. While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds. 

Thank you again for your candid feedback. Our team remains committed to listening, taking feedback and delivering a great product for you later this year"

 This news is awesome for everyone! The customers have made themselves heard and forced a behemoth to bend to their will. To all those who participated in the social media campaigns #PS4NoDRM and #XboxOneNoDRM, to all those who crashed the comments sections of Xbox videos so hard that MS had to shut off the comments completely, to those who responded to MS's Facebook promotions with ASCII-art middle fingers, to those who spoke with their wallets in pre-orders for non-DRM-hell consoles and spoke with their mouseclicks in online polls that embarassed Microsoft, and to those who created the educational .jpgs warning others about the awful DRM that spread like wildfire across the internet, THANK YOU!

In the face of the industry sycophants like Cliff Bleszinski and Totalbiscuit, who downplayed and/or ridiculed the efforts to fight back with social media campaigns and harsh criticisms, so many stood their ground, refused to give way to the cynicism and mockery and actually made a change. We saw it first when Sony acknowledged the NoDRM campaign and it's creator, NeoGAF's famousmortimer, in their press conference, and now after a few weeks of intense pushback Microsoft has raised the white flag and decided not to fuck it's customers over after all!

Before I close out this celebratory post, allow me to indulge in a moment of pure gloating excess:

 To all the apologists in the industry and games journalism who called the critical voices across the internet a bunch of entitled whiners, who implied that we're backwards troglodytes, that we're spoiled and that we are a loud and unimportant minority who don't amount to anything, all I can say is suck it, suck it hard motherfuckers! While you were willing to bend over and take the loss of first-sale freedoms for whatever petty reason, be it simple fanboyism, blind faith in unproven promises or licking the asses of the industry suits that give you free shit, we became an unavoidable storm that forced the corporate regime in Redmond to adapt or die. You kiss-ass shitlords lost, but the fact that you lost means you get a better and more user-friendly Xbox One than the one you would have gotten had we heeded your terrible advice to calm down and stay quiet. You can thank us later, after you've picked your egos up off the floor, but until then, YOU'RE WELCOME.

A Rebuttal to Brenna Hillier

Since the earliest days of home consoles there have always been system wars and debates over the merits of which gaming platform is superior to all others. Most of the time this has revolved around simple preferences for one set of exclusive games versus another, and as advances in internet technology have evolved the debate has evolved alongside it to include service platforms and multiplayer infrastructures.

But a curious thing has happened in regards to the forthcoming generation which will see Sony's Playstation 4 engage in direct competition with Microsoft's Xbox One. The battle this time around isn't as much about exclusive vs. exclusive, or Playstation Network vs. Xbox Live or even technical specs like GDDR3 RAM vs. GDDR5 RAM. No, this time around due to completely opposing philosophies in the design of the operating systems we have a war between one company saying that we get to own the discs we pay $60 for and do with them as we please once the first sale has been made, and another saying that they control our access to the games we pay money for. 

While one of the platforms will continue on with game sales and operation in the manner we have always been accustomed to, the other will enforce a new paradigm for physical copies in that their permission is needed to play the titles, that we have limited options for trading, selling and sharing games and that essentially all discs are nothing but unlock keys for digital copies, ensuring that we don't own anything. With such a vast difference in these platforms the lines have been quickly drawn for the gaming audience and many are choosing sides based not on what games were impressive at E3 or the various reveal events, but based on where they as a consumer are willing to give and where they will put their foot down in regards to their views on ownership rights. Needless to say the conversation has been quite heated with Microsoft and their Xbone console receiving a less than warm reception as details of their DRM and online connectivity requirements surface.

It's within this controversy regarding the next-generation systems that I read an article posted at VG24/7 by Brenna Hillier titled "Console Wars: you're going to buy an Xbox One" (link here) which about made me want to smash my head against a wall before I decided I'd openly rebut the article here. So without further ado, I'll begin here:

 "I’m no Xbot, kids; I was a rabid Sony fangirl before I saw the light of platform agnosticism (otherwise known as tax deductible hardware purchases). It took me years to pick up an Xbox 360 and I barely use it, since I don’t like the control pad (small hands, see) or have time for many multiplayer shooters. But I know I’m going to get an Xbox One eventually, and truly I think if you are the kind of person who invests in more than one console, you probably will too."

"Platform agnosticism"  is an odd choice of words. Agnostic is a word most associated with debates over beliefs and knowledge claims in regards to Gods and Godesses, and while some may mistakenly think agnostic is halfway between the theist and the atheist, a fence-sitter shrugging their shoulders, the truth is that gnosticism and agnosticism apply to claims of knowledge and not belief. One can be a believer but still claim to not know for certain, thus being an agnostic believer. Agnosticism doesn't mean sitting perpetually in zen-like emptiness of bias and subjective opinion, forever on a fence of perfect objectivity. Agnosticism is simply claiming a lack of knowledge of the topic at hand.

So in regards to platform preferences, the agnostic wouldn't be the undecided person or the person who wants to be extra careful to hide any appearance of subjectivity and bias, it's the person who has no knowledge of the details about the differences between PS4 and the Xbone. A person with no knowledge of the differences in $60 ownership of game discs or $60 in permanent rental ecosystems is not who Hillier is addressing here, and I maintain that for any person who takes a good and hard look at the facts in regards to these platforms there really is no actual middle ground. Maybe, just maybe, if you get your systems and games for free as part of the industry you can have a perpetual position of shrugging your shoulders and ignoring the debate, but for those of us who have to pay for these things and deal with the long-term consequences I cannot fathom anyone still being completely objectively neutral. The details of both platforms' positions is crystal clear, we know exactly where Microsoft and Sony stand.

  "Sure, the Xbox One online stuff is inconvenient but just look at these games"

I seriously hope so few people are so wowed by a couple of videogames that they're willing to tell the entire games industry, which has spent years scapegoating it's own customers for it's self-inflicted financial woes and perfecting pitiful schemes to loot it's own fanbase's wallets, that we will gladly piss away our ability to use the things we purchase in a manner of our choosing over some shiny CGI promises of yet another installment in the Halo or Forza franchises. You give this industry an inch of rope and it doesn't take a mile, it takes a lap around the fucking planet, and then blames you when the rope costs too damn much.

 "But “quite annoying” could also easily be applied to PC gaming. Many of the restrictions Microsoft is introducing have been common in PC gaming for years, where the idea of trading used games is only just cropping up as a possibility again."

Oh boy, here we go with trying to compare the closed monopolistic ecosystem of Xbox with the open and competition-filled realm of the PC gaming industry. Are you fucking kidding me?

I already addressed this pitiful argument before (link here), but just for the sake of further argument let's pretend there's a valid comparison between Xbone and Steam. Who do you trust more between Valve and Microsoft to take care of customers? Last time Microsoft ran a DRM-laden download service, called MSN Music, they decided to close it and completely fucked over all the customers who had paid for content by shutting off all downloads and offering no DRM-removal options for the things people had saved. They basically rode off into the sunset with a fatter wallet and not a single fuck given about the customers whom they had done a disservice to.

Microsoft can't be trusted at all in this regard, but let's say Valve turns just as evil to compare the situations on even ground. At least on PC I can back my games up and crack the DRM, but under Big Brother Orwellian Microsoft's check-ins I'd have no way of doing that for Xbone software at all. After all, their 24 hour parole check-in is designed to prevent exactly those types of things from ever happening.

"If you were there, if you dipped into the oily vitriol that greeted Steam’s debut, did you ever expect things to turn out like this? Maybe it shouldn’t have. Maybe we should all be die-hard anti-DRM advocates. Maybe DRM really is purely anti-consumer in all its forms. I’m in two minds on that issue, and I’m not interested in debating it here. What I am interested in is whether the same thing is going to happen to the Xbox One. Will this storm blow over, as so many have before it?"

The DRM on Steam merits higher leniency of thought because it's got workarounds and they sell games oftentimes at prices comparable to consumable items, not the premium prices seen on consoles. We already know that next-gen console games are beginning once again at the $60 price point, and given Microsoft's online pricing record on XBL it;s highly suspect we'll see anything at all resembling the massive blowout sales seen on Steam, Good Old Games, Amazon or Greenman Gaming. Perhaps Microsoft can surprise us, and I'd be the first to eat crow if they did. But until I see some evidence of them taking initiatives like this before the Xbone launches I find no reason to believe they will once their new ecosystem is up and running. Microsoft hasn't showcased a reason for people to quiet their strong opinions on the subject, and what they have said and shown to us is worthy of the backlash they're suffering through.

"Apart from a few vocal outliers, nobody inside the industry really seems to want used games to go away."

If you think the people inside the industry who want used games to die out completely or be a shell of what they are now are outliers, and not just carefully hiding their opinions to avoid the hornet's nest that Microsoft has smacked wide open, then I have a bridge to sell you.

"it’s entirely possible that Microsoft is actually ahead of the trend in chasing a digital future – as it was when it focused on online multiplayer, coming into this last generation well ahead of Sony."

Microsoft is perpetually behind in anything relating to the digital future. Sure Xbox Live got a head start on making online console gaming more streamlined, but it was merely implanting features seen in PC gaming into the console space. Beating conservative Japanese companies like Nintendo and Sony to the punch in this regard is not that impressive a feat.

If you want a glimpse of who is really setting the tends in digital futures, take a step away from consoles and look at the tech sector as a whole. Microsoft only wishes it were on the ball like Apple and Google. Microsoft's business under the reign of Steve Ballmer has displayed nothing but failure after failure in trying to compete against those two companies. Given the pitiful revenue intake and corporate status of their entertainment division which houses Xbox, I highly doubt the Xbox brand will stick around if it ends up selling at the rates the WiiU is currently selling at, or the rates the PS3 did circa spring 2007.

"No matter how strongly we rail against the Xbox One, how much we all focus on the negatives instead of embracing the positives, the Xbox One will sell and it will be successful. After all, it’s got Halo. It’s got Titanfall. It’s got all your Xbox Live friends. And it’s got your Gamerscore. Eventually, it will have you."

And here it is folks, the coup de grâce! If you are one of the core gaming audience who Microsoft is wanting to sell a $500 gaming device to (and at $500 the core is pretty much the only audience) then you are part of a vocal minority who likes to complain and you don't matter! Don't you just love how this narrative keeps popping up in games journalism and from industry types? It's so easy to dismiss everything with the wave of a hand, claim that the views of those who are critical don't represent and important group and then go forth with proclamations that the critics are all a bunch of sheep who will piss their money away against their own self-interests because of Halo 5 or Titanfall.

Don't make any mistakes, I admit there's a good number of fools who support the absolute worst cash-grabs the AAA Gaemz Industree™ comes up with, and there will be people who buy and support this DRM-infested shitstain of a console. But to claim that those who are planning on avoiding financing the fleecing of an entire userbase will relent because of shiny mechs and Master Chief is straight out of the condescension playbook currently being used by arrogant Microsoft executives, and once employed by a Sony exec named Ken Kutaragi who found himself out of a job when the Playstation brand went from 85%+ console marketshare to sub-33% in the space of one single console transition. 

Is it possible that the Xbone will be a hit? Well yes, there's always a possibility of anything, but the probability seems to decrease day after day as each bit of news hits. As mainstream outlets like Wall Street Journal, Forbes, BBC and NBC criticize Microsoft's plans, as pre-order numbers and launch allotments skew more and more in Sony's favor and as news of Xbone needing an entire year to even hit some regions comes to light, the probability of this console succeeding like the 360 did continues to shrink. This is especially noteworthy with so much of the negativity centered in the US and UK markets, the only ones where the Xbox brand ever had any real traction to start with.

But in spite of all of that, the narrative is being built that says the gamers are just whiners; simplistic and primitive troglodytes in this new digital era who hate change. The fence-sitters who cringe at any negativity, no matter how justified, will call for people to wait and see while more and more of the entities who run the AAA Gaemz Industree™ continue to manage themselves into bankruptcy and then try to shift blame to the customers rather than shitty planning and management skills. 

Let me make this clear: If harsh criticism of Microsoft upsets you or makes you uncomfortable, place the blame on them and not the critics. It's not the critics who decided to try and ram anti-consumer initiatives down the market's throat by brute force. It's not the critics who decided that the reveal event for a games device should have almost no footage of any actual games being played, but plenty of The Price is Right. It's not the critics who decided an implied rape joke against a female player during the Killer Instinct demonstration was a funny bit of griefing. It's not the critics who are implementing systems that will screw over small businesses, smaller publishers and long-term game collectors and preservationists just to appease bloated corporate entities that can't sustain themselves through making better products at more efficient costs.

Those of us casting negativity at Microsoft right now do so because Microsoft decided that this was the device to display to the world and the means of displaying it. Now that they've played their hand the whole world is responding in the marketplace of ideas and Microsoft is deservedly getting thrashed. As Jim Sterling put it, Microsoft didn't decide to wage a war on Sony and Nintendo, they decided to wage a war on consumers. Well, the consumers are fighting back, and as far as I'm concerned the fence-sitters trying to maintain the image of perfect enlightened and detatched objectivity while criticizing the positions of those who have chosen to participate in the discussion unfiltered and uncensored have no intellectual ground to stand on. By all means defend whatever merits you think the Xbone has. Buy one come launch if you desire to. Go forth and debate with those who differ with your stance until your fingers go numb, but don't try and act like you're above the fray just because some people say something mean to a soulless profit-driven corporation. Microsoft brought all of this heat onto itself, and it's too late to call a time-out.

When Microsoft Can't Control the Questions...

...this is what happens:

One of the most annoying aspects of modern gaming is that most of the outlets for the discussion of and spreading of information oftentimes act like they are arms of the PR departments of the platform holders and largest publishers. We the readers/watchers receive PR approved statements and fluff that don't amount to anything of use except to convince the easily swayed to spend their money foolishly.

Normally when we're discussing the realm of games journalism most would say this is truly a first-world problem, that it's not important to society at large, and that if you want to attack or call-out pseudo-journalism you should focus on things that truly matter such as a mainstream news outlet like Fox News basically acting as a propaganda machine for the Republican Party. I can't say that the people making these types of statements are wrong, because even though it's common knowledge that many of the reviews you see of major AAA game releases on Metacritic are boosted by publishers gifting ethically bankrupt promoters to write  glowing recommendations of products that may not be worth the cost of the optical disc on which they are printed, it's hardly a concern for most when compared to the verbal diarrhea that emanates from the likes of Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly every night under the guise of being a news source.

But alas, this is not a blog about politics and world news, this is a blog about videogames, the videogame industry and the culture that surrounds gaming. So when I see something rotting within this culture I feel the need to call it out and expose it because gaming is not a cheap endeavor and there's not many voices speaking on behalf of the average game purchaser. Between the costs associated with acquiring platforms at $350-$500, new games at $60, used or discounted games still sold at higher prices than any other media form out there, nickel-and-diming downloadable expansions and subscription fees for services, this is one of the most expensive forms of entertainment to keep up with.

Within this environment I find that so much of the so-called gaming journalism space is occupied by sycophants; corporate apologists who grovel at the feet of multimillion-dollar businesses out of fear that offending someone in a boardroom may damage their access to free review games, early reveals and previews and all that free swag that gets sent to reviewers to help insure that a favorable number is attached to the grades that get posted on Metacritic. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule even on well-known sites; Jim Sterling of Destructoid would be one example of someone who doesn't pander to the pitiful corporate hivemind and calls out the absurd when he sees it, but he would definitely be in a minority class for his profession.

Sometimes, in order to buck this sort of incestuous echo-chamber and get through the manufactured PR bullshit, you need an outsider to come in and disrupt the process. You need someone who hasn't been groomed in the corporate newspeak and the accepted rules of compliance who can bring some real questions to the table and press for real answers without just swallowing the load like so many want to do. In that regard, YouTube gaming personality Angry Joe officially wins this E3.

In the weeks leading up to E3 Microsoft, facing an intense level of backlash over their anti-consumer DRM in the Xbone, began to circle their wagons and cancel most of their interviews. Only certain outlets would get access to Microsoft employees, and most of those interviewers would go rather soft on pressing the PR puppets too hard. Angry Joe, an unrestrained wild card, managed to get through and snag some time with Xbox Minister of Propaganda Major Nelson.

Angry Joe may not be the smoothest or most skilled interviewer, but his blunt questioning and choices of topics rattled Major Nelson to the point where he became visibly frustrated and annoyed. For someone who has been giving carefully scripted canned PR bullshit to Xbox customers online and pseudo-journalists and podcast personalities inside the E3 halls, this must have been quite a disruption to his message building. It was clear that Nelson had lost all credibility in sustaining his bullshit at the moment he grabbed the microphone out of Joe's hand in an effort to shut him down with some barely contained alpha-male rage posturing. While most of the journalist types at E3 tried to ride on the fence and were afraid to call out Microsoft's bullshit, often attributing the controversy to "misunderstandings", "bad methods of messaging" and in the worst cases blaming gamers for being a bunch of old-fashioned troglodytes, Angry Joe, unpolished as his delivery may be, managed to get in the way of the constant spinning and do more actual fucking journalism than many of the people who claim they are journalists!

If only the professionals who do this sort of shit for a living could grow a pair and perform their jobs with the same earnest effort and honesty as this modest YouTube personality did, perhaps the amount of bullshit that gets circulated around would be drastically lower than it is now.

Kudos to you, Angry Joe.

Epic Battle: Xbone vs. Brick

A Message to Cliff Blezinski: "TOO BAD MOTHERFUCKER!"

 "TOO BAD MOTHERFUCKER!" -Cliff Bleszinski, in a post on NeoGAF responding to a critic

So today on Twitter former Epic games designer Cliff Bleszinski took to defending Microsoft's anti-consumer bullshit in a series of Tweets that demonstrates just how fucked up the thinking is of the people who are part of the AAA Gaemz Industree™ culture.

"You cannot have game and marketing budgets this high while also having used and rental games existing. The numbers do NOT work people."

Bullshit Alert! Bullshit Alert!
The truth is that nearly 70% of the money Gamestop pays out in the US to people selling their disc games is used by those same customers to pay for copies of new games. The truth is that there is no causal evidence showing that used games significantly disrupt the sales of new games enough to cause the financial hemorrhaging the games industry is seeing in recent years. If there were we wouldn't see things like each Call of Duty title stay at the top of NPD's top 10 for months on end while used copies occupy space on Gamestoip's shelves at prices far less than MSRP.

Used games are not responsible for marketing budgets so large that they in many instances double or triple the cost of releasing a big-budget title. Used games are not responsible for developers and publishers deciding to take franchises with a historic sales ceiling of less than 2-3 million units per release, spending $50-$100 million in trying to capture the sales numbers seen only by the likes of Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto or Halo, and then scrambling to find any excuse they can as to why they're in the red when they don't meet sales numbers that were unrealistic to start with.

"The visual fidelity and feature sets we expect from games now come with sky high costs. Assasins Creed games are made by thousands of devs."

I'm sorry, but this is more total bullshit. Graphics are important, yes, but to say you need a team of thousands to make a nice-looking game is ridiculous. Dark Souls is a very pretty game with amazing art direction, and it costs a fraction of what comes out of the mega-publishers like EA. The Witcher 2 was allegedly made for less than $15 million, it's got far superior graphics to any console game of this current generation, and the developer made quite a bit of money selling the game DRM-free and not treating it's paying customers like potential thieves like so many in the industry want to do.

And just what is this about "feature sets we expect"? Nobody asked for multiplayer in the Uncharted games, Bioshock 2, God of War: Ascension or the Tomb Raider reboot, but the developers spent time and money putting it in anyways. Nobody asked for Resident Evil 6 to become even more scripted and "cinematic" on a scale requiring hundreds of developers to create an interactive film, thus leading to Capcom needing a base of more than 6 million unit sales just to break even. Game developers and publishers are in a self-created arms race to outdo the other mega-publishers as they overspend on things they think will get them higher Metacritic ratings and trying to ram their way to the top of the AAA heap. Instead of being smarter, they just spend harder and cast blame on the gamers for being "entitled" or "too demanding".

"Newsflash. This is why you’re seeing free to play and microtransactions everywhere. The disc based day one $60 model is crumbling."

Oh my, did he actually finally say something in his Twitter spree that makes logical sense? Could it be that he's realizing that trying to sell every game imaginable at $60 is not sustainable?

"Those of you telling me “then just lower game budgets” do understand how silly you sound, right?"

Nope, guess I was wrong!
He immediately follows that Tweet that showed hints of mental clarity with this dud. Apparently to Cliff, proud alumni of the AAA Gaemz Industree™, the very idea of spending realistic amounts on a game is unthinkable! We need moar and moar money to sell our homogenized, overpriced and uninspired products! We need moar restrictions on gamer freedoms as we ram in things they didn't ask for! We need moar and moar money to hit 9-10 scores on Metacritic!

Won't someone please think of the poor developers!? For only $60 per non-transferrable disc plus the price of DLC, you too can help keep a starving AAA Gaemz Industree™ developer from having to sell their sports cars! Please, think of the poor CEOs and staff at the mega-publishers, and donate today!

What Bleszinki seems to not grasp is that most of the problems the publishers and developers face are things they imposed on themselves instead of working smarter, analyzing the marketplace conditions better, understanding the actual value their IP holds rather than the inflated value they think it holds and budgeting according to realistic sales and production goals. The industry bigshots instead continue to over-extend themselves trying to hit 10 million in sales for franchises with a maximum ability to appeal to maybe 2-3 million customers. So given all of that, and the notorious efforts of so many industry shills and puppets doing whatever they can to blame and pass the cost off to us, all I can say about the negative reaction to DRM and the financial bleedout seen by AAA Gaemz Industree™ publishers is "TOO BAD MOTHERFUCKER!"

The Defining Moment of E3 2013

When E3 2013 is all said and done, one thing will stand out in most people's minds above all others, and it happened last night at the Sony press conference.

Of course, it wasn't just at the conference that Sony rubbed the salt in Microsoft's PR wounds:

I imagine Redmond isn't a happy place right now.

Don Mattrick Interview With the BBC

"BBC: The preowned debate has really really run on and on. What assurances can you give that the publishers will allow to trade games freely?

Mattrick: Well look we have an ecosystem. There's 4 key participants in that ecosystem: consumers, content creators, retailers and Microsoft. So we have to come up with a set of policies that harmonize the interests of everyone. That allow us to work together. We've been working with our key retail partners. They're pleases with what we're doing. I think they're a great barometer for what I perceive consumers are going to take a look at so we've given a lot of detail about what people can do. We support resale. Uh, I don't know what else to tell you. Those business models exist today and they'll exist in the future."

For the full interview, with accompanying video, go here.

A set of policies that "harmonize the interests of everyone" eh? Up yours fucker, the only thing you people have done is walk all over your paying consumers and force them to bear the burden on behalf of Microsoft's interest in controlling all our access to the things we pay money for.

The Xbone DRM has NO benefit to the consumer and it has NO benefit to retailers who aren't part of your corporate oligopoly. It only benefits the sickly mega publishers who can't manage a checkbook and need as many strawmen as they can possibly conjure to avoid personal responsibility for running multimillion-dollar corporations into financial pits. It also only benefits the greedy control-obsessed executive assholes occupying the head offices of Microsoft in Redmond, who want to turn all sales into rentals and want us to check in like parolees just to use our electronic devices.

Seeing Don Mattrick's body language and his nervous behavior brought to mind an old rap song by Mobb Deep called "Shook Ones Pt. II"

" 'cause ain't no such things as halfway crooks
scared to death, scared to look, they shook
'cause ain't no such things as halfway crooks
scared to death, scared to look"

The Calm Before the Storm

 

Today is the final day of relative peace and quiet before E3, and for the first time I'm not excited by the prospect of what I'm going to hear. I should be, considering that we have 2 brand new consoles debuting and we have a contender who's not doing so well right now and knows they need to knock it out of the park with killer games to stop the stagnation of their recently launched platform. This should be a grand show with the blockbuster announcements from all those hungry to get a foothold in the hearts and minds of the gaming audience as the new generation descend upon us.

But thanks to the malicious activity of the industry of late I'm filled with dread instead of hope. The WiiU is DRM-free but 3rd parties have all but abandoned the device. Microsoft is going forth with a horrible DRM platform on Xbone that virtually ensures I won't ever own one so long as that software is a "feature". It's still unclear how Sony is proceeding on the DRM front. If Sony advances a DRM scheme similar to Microsoft I may just call it quits on console gaming altogether. Even if they announce that the forever-in-development games The Last Guardian and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 5 and speculated unannounced games like Kingdom Hearts 3 are now being designed for the Playstation 4, I would be hard-pressed to find justification in buying the machine to play them. And yes, if Sony has DRM similar to Xbone on the PS4 they will receive just as much hatred as Microsoft has in my future ranting blog posts.

So we now stand on the eve of E3, with both the Microsoft and Sony conferences happening tomorrow. I find myself wondering, as I did in one of the very first blog posts I wrote here, if the AAA Gaemz Industree™ which is pointing a gun at it's own head will squeeze the trigger and pre-emptively ruin the entire next console generation before it even starts. Is there is anyone coming to their senses before they ruin things? Microsoft can choose to remove the DRM if they want to, Sony can choose to not implement it at all, the question is will they? The ball is now in their court and all we can do is wait. 

The storm is coming my friends, the storm is coming.

Propoganda, For a Good Cause

The Ballad of the AAA Gaemz Industree™

gave up trying to figure it out but my head got lost along the way
worn out from giving it up my soul I pissed it all away
still stings these shattered nerves
pigs we get what pigs deserve
I'm going all the way down I'm leaving today

come come come on you've gotta fill me up
come come gotta let me inside of you
come come come on you gotta fix me up
come come gotta let me inside of you

still feel it all slipping away but it doesn't matter anymore
everybody's still chipping away but it doesn't matter anymore
look through these blackened eyes
you'll see ten thousand lies
my lips may promise but my heart is a whore

come come come on you gotta fill me up
come come gotta let me inside of you
come come come on you gotta fix me up
come come gotta let me get through to you

this isn't meant to last
this is for right now

I know it's all getting away and it comes to me as no surprise
I know what's coming to me is never going to arrive
fresh blood through tired skin
new sweat to drown me in
dress up this rotten carcass just to make it look alive

come come come on you gotta fill me up
come come gotta let me inside of you
come come come on you gotta fix me up
come come gotta let me get through to you

this isn't meant to last
this is for right now

I wish I could put the blame on you
I want you to make me
I want you to take me
I want you to break me
then I want you to throw me away

This preceding musical interlude of the song "Last", courtesy of Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, is dedicated to our dearly beloved AAA Gaemz Industree™.

Today Microsoft confirmed most of the horrible anti-consumer policies that were speculated on for the Xbone on their official website. As we witness Microsoft conspire with the mega-publishers to create complicated systems to limit user freedoms and punish end consumers, all in a desperate bid to stop the financial bleeding from our dear friends at the likes of EA, Activision and Ubisoft, let us ponder the lyrics to this song and see just how much of it describes the rotting mindset of an industry that is killing itself.

Sony Bombarded With Anti-DRM Campaign

 

Since the public reveal of the Xbone and the statements issued by Micrososft executives regarding used games there's been a great number of questions surrounding the next-generation console cycle as a whole, and whether or not Microsoft's closest competitor, Sony, would follow suit with used games DRM on the upcoming Playstation 4 console.

Up until this past weekend some statements, seeming to indicate that Sony was possibly planning to allow the PS4 to operate relatively DRM-free in the same manner as the PS3, had many assured that the next console cycle wouldn't be a complete wash. Popular thought was that one could always just switch from supporting Microsoft to supporting Sony to avoid having their expected consumer rights removed. However, on the latest episode of the Gametrailers show Bonus Round, host Geoff Keighley made the following statement regarding DRM on the next-gen machines:

"The one thing that is amazing to me is that right now we're not hearing a lot from the game publishers about what their view is on this. The console companies are becoming the bad guys. And, you know, Microsoft is getting beaten up a lot on it. Sony, I think, has been seen as this kind of white knight so far that's not going to restrict used games. Based on some of the things I'm hearing, I don't think that's entirely true, because I can't see publishers allowing one system to do one thing and one do another."

 Within hours of that episode of Bonus Round hitting the internet, gamers on several sites, beginning first at NeoGAF and spreading to reddit, 4chan and other online communities, began mobilizing to flood Sony with requests to not implement used game DRM on the PS4. While some have taken to single e-mail campaigns to express their concerns, the majority of the effort has been centered around social media, most notably on Twitter.

In the last few days Sony execs who are on Twitter have been hit with 24 hour a day barrage messages from all over the world asking them not to restrict consumer rights on their new console. The hashtags #PS4NoDRM and #PS4USEDGAMES have been wildly successful and gotten the attention of many mainstream games sites like MCV and Eurogamer as well as popular games personalities like Angry Joe and Jim Sterling. While it's absurd that things have gotten to the point where fans have to mobilize just to not be screwed over by the entertainment industry they enjoy, it's good to see an effort is being made. Hopefully the corporate execs across the industry, not just at Sony, are paying attention.

Leading the Sheep

According to a story posted today by MCV the Xbone TV input device is breaking pre-order records at Blockbuster.

Someone, please kill me now.

In all seriousness though, this is another instance of the gaming audience disappointingly acting like trained sheep by supporting the worst aspects of the AAA Gaemz Industree™. In all the years of gaming I've been aware that there are single platform loyalists; people who care more about the health of a specific console maker like Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft than they do about gaming in general. I've seen one guy who to this day refuses to touch a Nintendo or Sony platform because he blames those companies for Sega's exit of the console business and early demise of the Dreamcast. But how anyone, even the most diehard of Xbox-only gamers, can want to place a pre-order on a potentially DRM-infested and privacy invading TV switching box with an unknown price tag and an unknown release date following an unveiling that showed more footage of The Price is Right than actual in-game footage of all the announced games combined is beyond me.

Unfortunately this all falls in line with previous instances of the AAA Gaemz Industree™ training it's subjects so well that they seem to buy, support and validate some of the most ludicrous and awful cash-grabs one can imagine. Apparently with enough hype and a whole slew of corporate Gaemz Jurnalistz™ who do nothing but parrot publisher PR speak while receiving free consoles, games, paid expenses trips and bribery swag, you can get enough of the audience to plop down their cash and buy anything no matter how fucked up it is.

Beginning in the early life of the Xbox Live Marketplace when EA would sell downloadable content for the 360 version of The Godfather that was present and usable on the disc for free in the PS2 version of the game, which retailed for $10 cheaper, to modern times when we have an industry riddled with shitty season passes for DLC, DLC content on the disc locked behind a paywall and an attitude that says releasing a broken and buggy game only to patch it after the $60+ sale has been made is acceptable, it's become quite clear that it's not just the industry that's at fault, part of the blame also belongs to the consumers who put money into this machine.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling for people to not be able to spend their money how they want, but clearly there needs to be enough of a pushback against anti-consumer practices to counter the noise of the industry PR so that the audience is much better educated about how often they are getting the shaft from the companies whom they often defend quite vocally. The news of rapid uptake of pre-orders of the Xbone suggest there is a long ways to go.

Xbox One: Not Just Game DRM?

As the backlash to the Xbone console rages on, MCV continues to post rumors that if true will make this device the absolutely most anti-user and unappealing home electronic contraption to ever be conceived.

The latest in the train of bad rumors came today with a story claiming insiders have confirmed that the Xbone's mandatory Kinect camera functions will act as a visual DRM measure to check how many people are in a room viewing a piece of media. Apparently this is supposed to fall in line with a patent filed by Microsoft in the recent past.

The general idea is that the copyright holder of something like a movie or TV series could decide as part of a licensing agreement just how many people are allowed to view that media and Kinect would read and detect whether you are over your licensed limit and respond by stopping playback or demanding more goddamned money via microtransactions if your viewing party is too large.

" If it is deemed that too many people are present, the user will be prompted to pay an additional fee to upgrade the licence.

Says the filing: “The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken.”

It should be noted too that Kinect is designed to continuously observe its roommates. It also adds that the T&Cs for any particular piece of content can be determined by the copyright holder."

Again, it must be noted that this is all rumor right now, and nothing regarding the Xbone is set in stone, but if this comes to pass as true then I can only hope this device tanks harder than the Virtual Boy, the NGage or the 3D0. This is unacceptable to force a mandatory spy camera in with a device to monitor people in their own homes in order to police how well they comply with corporate mandates. This is like something out of a George Orwell work, and what I would expect from a games console if it were designed in North Fucking Korea.

If this becomes reality in the end product then Microsoft's executives have truly gone beyond being simply out of touch with normal humanity and entered into a domain of being a comic book villain made real.

Backdoor Corporate Deals and the Loss of Gamer Autonomy

Today MCV posted an article detailing how exactly the pre-owned games market will operate on the Xbone. Amongst the noteworthy tidbits:

" Retail sources have told MCV that Microsoft has this week briefed key retail partners on how it intends to take ownership of the pre-owned market."

"A gamer walks into a retailer and hands over the game they wish to sell. This will only be possible at retailers who have agreed to Microsoft’s T&Cs and more importantly integrated Microsoft’s cloud-based Azure pre-owned system into its own.
The game is then registered as having been traded-in on Microsoft’s system. The consumer who handed it over will subsequently see the game wiped from their account – hence the until now ambiguous claim from Phil Harrison that the Xbox One would have to ‘check in’ to Microsoft’s servers every 24 hours."

"These same unconfirmed reports also suggest that the activation cost for consumers buying or borrowing pre-owned software will be £35."

 It is worth noting that often the way the games industry prices things between Europe and America is simply to switch the currency notatins and leave the numbers intact, regardless of currency exchange rates. Thus a European retail price of £35 will translate directly to $35.

So there you have it folks, if this system of corporate control does come to pass on the Xbone the gaming audience faces a fee of more than half the original retail price of a game to have Microsoft's permission to activate the mandatory install. Only those who have enough corporate power to be accepted as part of Microsoft's Azure cloud-based ecosystem get to have any part in selling pre-owned software. This is the stereotypical worst of modern corporate backdoor handjob dealmaking, as it serves nobody but the pititful mega-publishers, Microsoft and a few select retail chains while shitting all over the end-consumer and small businesses. This is how oligopolies form and more of the type of crap that has led so many in the tech sector to hate the Microsoft corporation for decades now.

The worst part though is that this practice, as outlined in the quoted article, already has defenders amongst the gaming population. On one popular gaming forum the following quotes could be read in response:

 " Seems fair."

Fair to the corporate entities maybe. Name me one other consumer product that bars me from private reselling, and why it should be acceptable in this instance.

" Publishers Win Retailers Win
This is something both sides of the equation can support... what, therefore is the big deal if you can still go to a major retailer and trade in your stuff?"

Yes, let's gladly let "major retailers" and Microsoft have complete control over how we resell the things we have paid our own money for, so long as the mismanaged AAA Gaemz Industree™ and select corporate resellers win. Oligopy Super-Winning Power....Activate!

"Makes sense."

I seriously hope you mean it "makes sense" in that it follows the trend of American corporations freely enacting measures to control the end consumer like rats in a maze, and not that it "makes sense" in a fashion of being a good idea.

"Sounds good."

Sluuuurrrrp....sluuuurrrrpppp..."Oh Master Ballmer, shoot it all over my face, get it all over my face!"

"Sounds good, but will places like gamespot just increase the price of used games to cover what they will lose and pass the cost on to us? Also, how will renting work?"

This retard just confused Gamespot with Gamestop, speculates that the prices of used games will increase, asks how rentals could ever work under this system (they likely can't, genius), and starts their post with "Sounds good". Can people really be this fucking stupid?

"So what? Who lends £40 discs to get scratched to fuck anyway?"

Redbox, Gamefly, local mom and pop stores, people with active social circles of friends and family who enjoy the same hobby and may lend a game out to those whom they associate with. You know, people who have a LIFE and don't play videogames exclusively in their gamer basements.

"All it does is prevent loaning games to a freind and I havent done that in a while"

This reminds me of the modern Libertarian/Objectivist view of economic disparity: "I got mine, fuck the rest of you!"

To be fair, this is just a small subset of the larger discussion at the site I pulled these quotes from and doesn't represent the majority of opinion and discussion. I just wanted to highlight these selected responses because it perfectly showcases one of the major problems we as game consumers face. So often we're willing to give up our expected consumer rights and freedoms to corporations which don't deserve our respect or money, but who have an uncanny ability to garner such support even after screwing us over through sheer power of PR hype machines.

While I hope the gaming audience on the whole continues to respond to this anti-consumer garbage with such negative force that it becomes mandatory for Microsoft to abandon their plans in order to keep their gaming business alive, I fear many will simply just sadly come to terms with it and still buy the damned box once they get "hyped" after the inevitable E3 trailer with Master Chief's helmet.

For the Dumbasses: Clearing Up PC vs Xbox One DRM

As the fallout from Microsoft's day of woe (Xbox One reveal) continues and they get roasted by the gaming community left and right nonstop, some of their apologists, who are no doubt shellshocked that their favorite console corporation is under such assault of negative opinion, are scrambling to find any defense they can for the bullshit anti-consumer tactics that are set to be launched on the Xbone TV switcher.

In their desperation they try to call out PC gamers and ask them such stupid questions as "Why is this a big deal? Isn't it the exact same DRM as Steam and PC games?" Thinking they've thrown a brilliant rhetorical jab at their opponents they fail to notice the only thing they've done is display a shocking level of ignorance about the vast world of difference between PC gaming and console gaming.

So, as a public service to the clueless, uninformed and the willfully ignorant who would pose such a moronic question, allow me now to spell out why lack of ownership rights has been accepted to a certain degree in the realm of PC gaming. I hope I can explain for even the most simple-minded of readers why restrictive DRM on services like Steam is not drawing the wrath of the gaming public like the proposed DRM of the Xbone is.

- On a PC I have complete control of all the hardware and software installed on my system. I can switch any component I want and run any program on my OS I want. On an Xbox I can only use overpriced Microsoft approved hardware and software. On Xbone the hard drive won't even be replaceable.

- On a PC I have free reign to modify my games any way I want to, with the exception of MMORPGs which are more of a service platform than a traditional game. I can even copy my game files for archiving or remove things like the Steam DRM with a little know-how and/or a guide. What are the chances any of this will be available to Xbone users?

- On a PC I can run older games dating back to the days of Doom and Wolfenstein alongside newer tech-intensive games like Metro: Last Light and The Witcher 2, and my library of games can be modified to be future-proof to play on new operating systems and hardware as they come out. Xbone can't even play 360 games and the game library will likely only have a playable lifespan equal to Microsoft's desire to run XBL servers for the console. 10 years from now your copy of Forza 5 might only be usable as a drink coaster once Microsoft pulls the plug on Xbone services.

- Steam is a FREE service that has FREE online play and the store often features amazing sales where major AAA games, many less than a year old, get price drops of 75-80%. For less than $15 you can pick up entire packs of games and entire series of popular franchises. Xbox Live almost never offers deals like these, and even with Steam's DRM in place the fact that they often drop prices of games to levels where they compete not with other games, but with everyday consumable items truly does go a long way to soften the blow of the loss of ownership of the software. If you pick up the first two Bioshock games for $5 are you likely to complain later that technically you really only bought the license to use the game code? Probably not.

- Competition improves PC services in a way that you don't see on consoles. Sure, there is some competitive fire between Playstation Network and Xbox Live, but for the most part they are closed monopolistic ecosystems on the platforms they inhabit and are not subject to the same pressures a service like Steam is. For the savvy PC gamer who doesn't like Steam they can often simply choose to go buy the game they want at Gog.com (DRM-free), or Amazon, or even for the masochistic, Origin. There's no shortage of competition in the PC gaming space, and it's that competition that forces companies like Valve or Good Old Games to be as consumer-oriented as possible.

- PC games are almost always the best versions of the games technically. While consoles age over their lifespan to the point where after a couple years many games are unable to run even at 30 frames per second in 1080p resolution, the constant evolution of PC hardware allows the same games to run at even higher resolutions, sometimes spread across multiple HD monitors, with more detail and a steady 60 frames per second on a system with even a moderately priced graphics card and CPU. There's just no way around it, the PC version of a game is typically THE definitive version.

Hopefully for those who use comparisons full of ignorance and logic failures in regards to PC gaming vs Microsoft console gaming this will clear things up a bit. Hopefully it will make them realize why their arguments are bad and why they should feel bad for making them. Maybe, just maybe, it could help them understand why they should re-evaluate where they should spend their money this coming holiday season in regards to gaming hardware.

Of course, the problem for some is that they'd have to get their heads and eager tongues away from Don Mattrick's asshole first in order to read this, wouldn't they?

Will The Industry Squeeze the Trigger?

Right now it seems that our beloved games industry is in trouble. Publishers and game developers within the mass market "AAA" games space have become bloated behemoths who spend absurd amounts of money on game development, oftentimes resorting to firing their CEOs, closing long-running studios and posting financial results in the red even after having games that top the charts and sell 3 million units in a fiscal quarter. We've seen entire companies go under and others consolidate and contract, all while homogenizing their products to imitate the top franchises in their chosen genres and creating an environment where most major $60 games all feature the same modes, the same mechanics, the same character and plot archetypes, the same features and the same dependence on pitiful pre-order DLC bonuses and gimmicky downloadable garbage which one would expect to see from a free PC game modding community.

The worst we've seen is the stale and bloated corporate industry masters, unable to grasp what it is their audiences want, flail around wildly at every strawman they can to find something, anything, to blame their performance and management woes on. Piracy, used games, Gamestop, game rentals, negative reviews and all manner of other excuses have been made, and the industry has marched ever onward with badly implemented and sleazy digital rights management schemes to try and curb behavior they disapprove of. Oftentimes these schemes result in trampling on consumers' expected rights to use products they purchase in the manner they choose and burdening paying customers with barriers to their gaming while doing almost nothing to curb things like internet piracy.

With the Nintendo Wii U currently bombing at trainwreck-spectacle levels in the market and the upcoming Xbox One console implementing system-wide DRM measures that penalize those who might wish to trade or borrow games, use Gamefly or Redbox or allow someone to use their disc on their own account, it's become clear that the gamer backlash against Nintendo's hardheaded insistence on ignoring their own market and Microsoft shitting all over theirs outright has become a very, very noticeable trend that should cause the industry to shake in fear. Out of the "Big Three" who have dominated living room gaming for the past few decades, two of them are seeing an outright revolt, with one dying on the vine from apathy and one facing the collective wrath of the entire gaming community before their product even enters the market.

This leaves us with one last contender to the next-generation throne, Sony, and their upcoming Playstation 4 console. Sony is at the crossroads now, and the decisions they make before launch I believe will determine whether we go back to a PS2 era situation where one console takes 80+% of the market and offers a viable outlet for developers and publishers to succeed and expand even as the competing platforms struggle to gain significant marketshare, or if we see a collapse of the industry to levels more reminiscent of the late 80's and early 90's.

If Sony follows Microsoft in restricting the rights of paying customers then I predict there's a good chance that console gaming as we know it will become an irrelevant niche, suitable only for the most sycophantic of corporate cockmunchers who will willingly part with their money to buy an expensive pseudo-computer with $60+ software that will be unusable once those who grant us permission to use the products we buy decide to axe their services.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth"

The above quote is from the famous poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, and is a perfect description of the state of the industry. As low budget consumable titles ascend and high budget behemoth games fall like stacked dominoes it seems that everyone in the corporate offices of the platform holders and publishers face a choice. They can either double-down on the losing strategies they've employed so far or change to control their costs and serve the end-consumer better. Unfortunately it seems the early outlook has seen many of the big players continue on their path of self annihilation. As this current generation of hardware rapidly reaches it's end, time is running out for the industry players to reverse course and stop a self-inflicted implosion. Will they take the road less traveled and succeed at expanding the gaming business again, or will they end up putting the gun to their head once and for all and squeezing the trigger?

Let's Be Blunt: Xbox One Can Fuck Itself

Today at the Redmond, Washington Microsoft campus, the Xbox division officially revealed it's long-rumored and often-discussed next-generation console, dubbed the Xbox One.

When I first heard the name during the broadcast I had to double-check my Twitter feed to make sure I got the right info because I was confused by the prospect of a company releasing it's third device with the name Xbox calling the latest version "One", especially when that designation was already worn on the product of a competing company from two generations and more than a decade ago (PSOne). Even at three hours after the end of their conference, when I Google image searched "Xbox One", I still received many more hits for pics of the original Xbox console than the device which was supposed to be lighting the internet on fire with discussion and trending social media. This is not the smartest move ever by Microsoft, but from what I can tell it's the least of the problems this device presents to the world.

In the early stages of the conference we got to witness a half-hour long demo of the One being used as a TV tuner with instant switching to game functions, XBL Marketplace and general internet browsing via Internet Explorer. All of this was controlled via Kinect hand gestures and talking, and while it's all very cool-looking on a controlled stage and very reminiscent of Minority Report sequences, I couldn't help but laugh to myself as I pondered the pinch and squeeze gestures or the switching tabs on the OS motions being accidentally triggered by children in the living room playing with their toys or someone moving their arms suddenly to answer a phone, hand something to another person or grab something off a table.

All that aside, the most puzzling thing was that the vast majority of this presentation was about the Xbox One being used as a TV box, and we're living in an era when TV services are becoming threatened by independent streaming services like Netflix and Hulu that operate across many devices, including sub-$100 units sold right now in retail chains or stuff built into most modern HDTV sets by default that will never require someone to rush out and buy a new TV-tuning console that will likely retail for at least $400 this holiday season. Don't get me wrong, the Xbox One did these functions with a good deal of style and grace, but it wasn't so far advanced over the large list of connected devices and services already available and already installed in millions of homes worldwide that it would drive people to switch from what they already have. While it's obvious that games consoles need multimedia functions to be relevant, it seems Microsoft has taken this message a little too far and made this device more of a (potentially) $400+ competitor to a Roku box than a competitor to Playstation or Nintendo.

This sort of focus isn't a surprise in the era of Don Mattrick running the Xbox division of Microsoft, as we've seen for years now in E3 conferences, and what minimal percentage of the time allotted was devoted to upcoming Xbox One games was painful, to say the least. They showed a CG trailer for Forza 5 that didn't look any better than anything seen in current high end PC racing games or the coming Playstation 4 title Drive Club. They showcased a new game from the developers of Alan Wake that started with a poorly acted live-action sequence (I thought FMV games died with the 3D0) of a creepy young girl talking about her mysterious powers that quickly jarred the senses by switching to CGI footage of a boat crash and cops getting shot. None of the supposed "in-game" footage looked like it couldn't be done on a 360. We then got the usual multiplatform EA Sports and Activision Call of Duty: Ghosts crap, with the now standard promises of timed exclusivity on downloadable add-ons. The only hint of a Halo title was not a game but more of Microsoft becoming obsessed with TV and announcing a new Halo show directed by Steven Spielberg.

All in all this conference was boring, irrelevant to the gaming audience at large and confirmation that my choice to abandon Microsoft consoles in favor of PC gaming was the correct one. In spite of all that, what really inspired my obviously inflammatory title for this blog is the post-event news which broke out across the web that affirmed some of the fears many had about Microsoft taking their hubris and domination of a closed off platform too far and enacting DRM measures which hinder paying customers and reduce their rights while offering nothing of value in return. Specifically I'm referring to this:

"Reports are claiming that Xbox One will require all games to be installed on the console's HDD before they can be played.
According to Wired, if owners want to use the disc with a second account they'll be asked to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, suggesting that once games are installed you won't need to insert the disc to play."   -IGN

What's further complicating this mess is the fact that Microsoft's own people are saying these game installs are tied to accounts, not consoles, and while they claim there's no mandatory "always-on" connection, it seems impossible to register and validate an install key without one.

So what's the story Microsoft? Is it tied to an account? If so does that mean households with more than one user of a machine, who may like to track their own individual game completion and Achievements on their own profiles, now have to discuss and debate each other over who gets to install the game to their XBL account? If you are going to require this key system, are you going to drop the prices of games and offer similar sales prices that we see on PC that make the removal of user ownership rights more acceptable on that platform, or are you and your publishing partners still going to insist on $60 discs and massively overpriced download versions that never drop below $30 until many years after release, if ever?

This sort of DRM, which is intended to appease a pitiful AAA games industry that blames end users and Gamestop for their poor business practices and over-expenditures on "blockbuster" games, is shameful and yet another sign that the AAA mainstream-big-publisher games industry will go down in flames before realizing the root cause of their financial woes. Instead of facing the real problems of homogenization, bloated budgets and poor product management they will blame all of us who play and buy games and the retailers who keep interest in gaming going by catering to an audience who may like to browse through back catalogs of used games that often feature older titles that are rare or out of print.

Even if this re-installing fee on a different account or machine is small, it still is a move that makes the Xbox One less appealing as it shortens the viable playable lifetime of every box sold. Every game will only truly be playable so long as Microsoft keeps running the activation servers and still employs people to run the services on that platform. Once that's gone all Xbox One consoles will be limited to playing only the content that was on the hard drive at the time the servers shut down, meaning we won't see the sort of secondhand market and community that pops up with all retro games and consoles and still sees functioning NES consoles from 28 years ago trading hands amongst enthusiasts looking to play games from the past. I myself still have a large collection of functioning games and consoles from 20+ years ago, but the way things are looking the max shelf life on an Xbox One game is 5-7 years. How sad that console gaming has come to this.

All in all this reveal was a mess. Microsoft wants to be a TV company with a box that will be overpriced and late to the internet TV box party, and in order to succeed it's asking gamers to be the prophets of their messaging while simultaneously shitting on them. The worst part about this is that this approach already has it's vocal defenders and I have to wonder if sociologists could make a case study for Stockholm Syndrome using Xbox fans.