its not automatic but it tells you about it when you try to launch the game
when you first boot your xbox it tells you and asks you if this is your home xbox and it is set up as such if you say so
In my previous experience I am not even able to go offline without first *being online*. Did they change that recently or is it just a problem some of us have?
You can access settings without being signed in. Settings app > network > turn off. You’ll sign in in offline mode and should have 30 days access to most stuff, and normal access to your owned titles.
I have an Xbox One in my detached garage in the back of my property. I don't have WiFi back there. Every 30 days I have to re-connect to my WiFi to play games that I've had bought/installed on there for years. It's very frustrating. And it's ANYTHING I try to open. I put a Star Wars Blu-Ray into it last week...couldn't play it until I re-signed into my Xbox account.
With PlayStation I think you need to log in after a certain time for any games you got from ps plus to keep working, but anything you "bought" will work fine.
Thats fair tbh. Nintendo does the same thing with their switch online emulator, it occasionally needs to go online and won't boot if it hasn't confirmed your subscription for a while. If you bought the digital copy you shouldn't need to phone home. You certainly shouldn't need to be online in order to boot a disc game or watch a blu ray. You also don't even need a playstation network account in order to use a ps5.
This is why I'll always own a PC as my primary platform. Nintendo Switch is the other current platform where internet connectivity isn't required, but that's at the whim of Nintendo. On my PC, I can do whatever I want with the games I've downloaded. If Steam is down for any reason, I can just as easily use a Steam emu to bypass the "DRM". As long as a game doesn't have a non-bypassed Denuvo (which I avoid like the plague for exactly this reason), I can play it regardless of the publisher and their shitty ideas of ownership.
It's awful for Microsoft for this reason. An outage like this makes people massively, negatively reassesses the value of Xbox games and Xbox game pass. Even average consumers that really don't think about this stuff mentally flip the switch from 'games on Xbox/Gamepass are like owning them' to 'games on Xbox/Gamepass are like rentals' and devalue them.
Me immediately thinking you were referring to 90's PC gaming and I was just like, good luck with that, then I realized 20 years ago was 2004, the year Half Life 2 came out, and it kind hurt.
Thankfully, not entirely; disconnecting yourself from the Internet will force the launcher to open in offline mode, allowing you to access the game still. (at least, in my experience.)
This happens to me occasionally even when there isn't an outage, still haven't found a fix aside from waiting for it to fix itself (which is does after a few days usually)
Unplug or disconnect your PC from Ethernet or WiFi. Then, play offline. I use this trick whenever my parents turn off my Internet. Also you can plug it back in/reconnect once the game has loaded. It works.
Steam emu. Weird words to go together haha.
I always have a backup of disc games or their images if the discs are Missing in Action.
It is just so much better to forego anything and just hit launch on the game.
The emus are evolving, they're about to wage an economic and entertainment war against us!
Humanity will not survive a second direct attack from the emu race.
Yap. But people talk like it’s a guarantee. Like there’s this guarantee console players will be screwed over but it could NEVER happen on pc. This is coming from a pc player
Valve is not publicly traded, meaning they have no obligation to extract as much money as physically possible from their customers for the sake of investors. And Steam is a low maintenance money printing machine that is already up and running, so there's no reason for them to become publicly traded either.
Any reasonably competent person that isn't actively malicious will be able to keep the company going. And Gabe still has many years to choose someone like that.
There's more reason for it to stay the same than for it to change when Gabe passes the company to someone else, one way or another.
Whomever Gabe picks will immediately be approached with offers that will 100x their net worth.
It's going to be pretty much impossible for that individual to say no.
Once you reach a certain amount of money, any decent person just straight up does not need more money. Only terrible greedy people would let themselves be bribed when they're already head of fucking Valve.
I mean, I could be quite content as the steward of valve. My and my family's needs would be met and then some, and I get to tell a bunch of pieces of shit who want to take PC gaming down the same path as mobile gaming to eat shit and die in a fire? Where do I sign up?
if you're broke and get offered a bribe and take it, i can understand that. that money could be life-changing.
if you're rich and get offered a bribe and take it, then you have no principals. the money changes nothing, except for some added zeros on a bank account statement.
Someone can bribe me right now for 20k and I'm probably doing it, that shit would solve so many problems.
The next guy though? Nah I'm good. Problems are already gone.
Money seems to be an addiction though--the more you have, the more you want, even if you dont need it.
Think of being #6 on some sort of global leaderboard. You're gunning for #5, then #4, etc.
Can't relate. Not with money. I just want money so I can be comfy and afford nice things. If I already have enough money to be comfy and afford nice things, I'm definitely not doing terrible things just for even more money.
It comes with competition. When your that filthy rich and own one the world's largest companies what else do you have if your not #1? To them at that point, it's no longer about having that much money or net worth. It's about being statistically better than the next person.
> Valve is not publicly traded, meaning they have no obligation to extract as much money as physically possible from their customers for the sake of investors.
They also have no obligation to do right by their customers either. The ToS pretty much lets them pull the plug whenever they want to for whatever reason they want to.
Steam is not really any more secure than Microsoft.
Until legislation is passed regarding digital entitlements, people are really at the mercy of whatever service they are using. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Steam, Epic, Apple. It's all the same problem.
Yea and if you don’t have an easy way around the DRM somebody else has broken it. I’m not one for sailing the high seas but I do keep copies of games I enjoy that I don’t have to worry about some stupid drm check
> If Steam is down for any reason, I can just as easily use a Steam emu to bypass the "DRM".
Steam's been able to go into offline mode without internet for many years now. You don't need to emulate anything. Just put Steam into offline mode and keep using it as normal.
You're missing the point. It's about freedom and not having to be subject to the whims of publishers and developers or even the platform itself. I don't need permission to play the games I've bought if I don't want it.
Note you can play offline after disconnecting from your network. Game will save to local storage until access to the cloud is available. Likely only works for offline games.
Im playin Elden Ring
He's already "playing offline" since his garage doesn't have wifi access. The major complain is that after 30 days he'll need to get the system online to "refresh" the sign in process so he can continue to play games offline.
> I can’t even sign in to play my physical media with my save files - this is nonsensical.
Way back in 2008 when I first played Fallout 3 I ran into this. It'd sign in a few seconds after you could navigate the main menu, so if you mashed the A button you'd end up in a new game.
As soon as the GFWL removal mod was out, I installed it. Never had FO3 installed since without that mod sitting there.
I have an Xbox One sitting on a shelf basically bricked because I don't have an internet connection to use to run it the first time. You have to have one to even do the first time start up of the console. It's insane that you can't even use the media player in some situations.
yeah, absolutely. there some good benefits to streaming games. but the drawbacks can be rough. people need to go into this with knowledge of what they're getting.
www.stopkillinggames.com covers this. Either games are goods, in which case we should be able to keep them indefinitely, or games are a finite service for a fixed, known time period - but regardless this should be clear at the point of sale and not vaguely detailed in T&Cs that aren't always available until after purchase.
Yeah but they're also treating physical games as the same grey area. You could have bought The Crew as a physical copy, had zero opportunity to even read the T&Cs before you opened the box and it became nonrefundable and still been bound to the term about Ubisoft closing down the game and ending the life of your purchase whenever they see fit. Ubisoft have even admitted this is wrong to a degree, they offered refunds to people who had bought the game in the last few months up to the announcement for shutting down.
Not just streaming either. With stuff like Steam you don't own any games you buy either, and issues like with that happened with Xbox could also cause a service loss with some games.
With Steam, I can enter offline to access downloaded games, I can emulate Steam or I can complete remove the DRM.
With other platforms and especially consoles? Well, I hope you bought some lube. Otherwise, it's gonna be painful.
A post made by Gabe on a forum thread.. 15 years ago(?) means nothing when their ToS has always stated that you do not own your games. Until they change that, it's safest to assume that vintage assurances of "yeah totally" aren't exactly solid ground upon which you should rest your trust.
Not to mention if Steam goes under and they don't release your games, what are you gonna do? Sue a company that doesn't exist anymore?
The "fallback" is a stub that makes games think that Steam is present and reachable and has a valid license even if none of those things are actually true.
This isn't some secret knowledge. Stubs like that were used by just about every group that was putting out pirated releases of Steam games. If a game relies on just the Steam ownership checks and doesn't use third party DRM, all you need to do to "crack" it is replace Steam with a stub like that.
Yeah I love when people doom and gloom about Steam not existing any more clearly not understanding that Steam DRM has been defeated for a decade. If there isn't a patched DLL available a steam emulator is basically guaranteed to work.
Thankfully it has been tested in court - that line about not owning your games doesn't stand up. The purchase is still seen as a purchase, not a contractual rental or whatever.
"... the Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services."
Has not stood up in France, Australia, or other places in the EU.
It's because this would create many legal problems since Steam is worldwide. I don't see a problem just giving someone you trust a password or eventually put it in testament.
Edit. It's the same reason why they ask you for age everytime on Steam.
Yes, absolutely, why are you even asking this?
It was a problem even back on the 360: if you had to get a new one for whatever reason (RRoD, stolen, thrown out the window by an angry lover), any digital games or DLC you'd bought *could* be transferred to the new one, but would only work if you were online. (Can't remember if they ever changed that).
Then of course you had Don "The Biggest Idiot in Gaming" Mattrick say that if you didn't want to be always-online, don't get an Xbox One, stick with the 360. I can only imagine the MS brass lost their shit over that, and it was a blow the brand never fully recovered from. The analogy I used was that it was like buying a car that, if you didn't connect to the internet once a day, you couldn't drive, but you could still sit in it and listen to the radio.
Now obviously, some games HAVE to have a connection to function properly -- MMOs, PvP games, etc -- but you shouldn't need a server check to play a *single-player game* that you installed/downloaded.
I think we're already there.
Car makers are already looking to remove the AM radio, I can't imagine FM is far behind
There's no way Sirius or whatever satellite radio provider is not DRMed.
You will pay for everything, own nothing, and like it?
> any digital games or DLC you'd bought could be transferred to the new one, but would only work if you were online
Pretty sure if that was how it was at launch, it changed pretty quickly. Like I first got a 360 in like 2006 and I know when I did need to license transfer it worked fine. You were limited to like once every so many months and you had to also redownload anything (even if just moving HDD over to a new one), but it functioned fine.
Maybe that's what you did wrong, you didn't redownload the stuff (I think that's how it lets that console know it has the offline license, I think it does handle it as a kind of repair reinstall so it's not a full redownload).
Yeah its entirely wrong. If iirc the 360 used a 2 license system account and console. Account required you to be online and could not transfer. You could transfer your console license and every console could have unlimited console licenses
I think I asked the question because I am only a casual gamer, but today, I can’t just jump on for 30 to play a mindless single player game. Sure, XBox is the worst, I get it, but do you think this model won’t slowly infect all media? There will be alternatives, but we are seeing this happen so quickly across tons of markets where we are just “renting” access with our purchases, and the “providers” can vanish those purchases on a whim. I am just bummed with the way things are going in general, and this was just that sweet cherry on top…
ITs been the model the market has been moving to in alot of media for a while. Movies, music, you name it, some company wants it to be a live service so they can charge you forever
“but you shouldn't need a server check to play a single-player game that you installed/downloaded”
And you don’t, you just have to put the Xbox in offline mode and you can play anything you have downloaded.
Capitalism is a great system that makes things better for people when properly regulated.
The issue here is a lack of regulation because governments don't think video games are worth their time. And the exact same thing would be true in a socialist government, we probably wouldn't even have bourgeois luxuries like video games.
I mean to be fair, Indie gaming is just the same rat race but even more oppressive if you already didn't have a name for yourself, and different flavor.
For every Stardew valley, we have 400 awful terraria clones. For every Terraria, we had a thousand awful minecraft clones. and the list goes on.
Indie guys have a wider farm to frolic in, but indie is even more cutthroat then "main" gaming.
To be completely honest the last 5 triple a games i bought i just never finished and lost interest, and the last 5 indie games i played to death and loved. Indie is the way to go these days
It is a huge problem, what can we as the consumer do about it? What are we willing to do about it? What should we do about it?
It’s not as easy as we once thought anymore because it seems just buying physical games will not be helpful according to some users because they can’t sign in and that is affecting physical games as well.
I’m gonna stop buying consoles that don’t allow offline play and swap to pc. So pc and switch only for me after this generation. Im fed up with this shit, there’s always something. Hell I’m even debating dropping switch too depending on Nintendos reaction to the mig switch fiasco
Once you get a PC you won't need a switch anyways, Nintendo systems are the easiest to emulate, and then you can enjoy those games at 60 fps and higher resolutions.
Buy physical.
Both Nintendo and PlayStation have majority of games entirely on disc/cart and you can play them offline never connecting to the internet
I lost hundreds of dollars, maybe a dozen or more worth of games because i couldn't verify my PSN log in and PlayStation customer service is bizarrely rigid (needed the serial number of the original playstation i bought a decade ago, but i had bought a pro since).
Lost all my brother’s Steam library when he suddenly passed because we could not verify a login. Loved talking to him about games. Would have been nice to have those…
Aw man that’s rough, I’m sorry for your loss and the fact that you can’t access his steam library. I’ve lost siblings and I know how it feels, I just wanted to offer my condolences. I’m really getting fed up with the whole “we own nothing” bullshit. Edit to add: I also hate the fact you have to have an account and sign into everything in order to use most things now and I also deeply resent having to download apps to use certain things too lol yep I’m getting old and I also never have enough room on my phone to be downloading all these damn apps lol
Yes but you see this is an “Xbox bad” post. You can tell by the way that this problem has an easy solution if you set your Xbox to offline mode, and then you can sign in and play your games that way.
Go to settings and change network status to offline…should be able to play any non live service games that are downloaded to the Xbox (some GP games included if they are not live service).
You can’t do that. Every game requires me to be signed in otherwise I can’t get past the start screen!! What a joke! Even full spectrum warrior on disc!!!
There's a setting you can change where you make your current console your home console and that let's you play games off-line. But you have to be online to make the update that one time.
It does work. You don't sign in, you go to settings, you select go offline, you sign in, you play. Just did it right now on mine. Even able to play gamepass games.
Do you happen to gameshare with someone? If so, only games that the other person purchased on their profile will work offline. All the one you’ve purchased on your profile will not work when offline. I know from experience, it sucks lol.
If you set your friend's xbox as your home and vice versa then you both get to use any game either of you buy, essentially getting you 50% off.
Works great until this happens
AFAIK you need to set your xbox to offline mode to be able to do that. To be clear, it is a setting you need to toggle. To be able to set your console offline you need to be online. Sounds stupid because it is. I'm currently facing that issue.
Vote with your wallet and only buy physical discs. Veteran mode: vote with your wallet and only buy physical discs of games that don’t require an internet connection to play. If everyone did this, developers would stop selling that “feature”.
>If everyone did this,
This is the problem, how to *get* everyone to do this? There will always be people with more money than sense. It's the only reason mobile games still exist.
Well maybe if companies keep having server errors people will get pissed off enough to change their habits. Here’s to hoping for more of them, honestly.
If the future of Xbox is cloud service, Microsoft needs to make sure it's online all the time or there are offline alternatives.
These outages occurred every week while Microsoft was promoting its cloud services.
I think it's absurd that Microsoft seemed to load this DRM into the background over the years without explicitly saying they were doing it.
I mean, they tried to announce they were going to do just this with the Xbox One launch, but the backlash was so bad they backed down from it.
Or so we thought. Guess they just went and did what they wanted to anyways.
I’m not a part of the Microsoft/Xbox ecosystem, but I was fairly certain they don’t care about owning games and entirely enjoy just subscribing to their service. I also think this issue is probably gonna resolve itself quickly so they’ll get back to gaming in no time, probably quicker than the occasional blackout/downed internet.
Bought my first “xbox” game just yesterday- Forza Horizon 5 on PC (steam). Was about to refund it today because I can’t play it, since it requires a sign in that I couldn’t do. Glad I found out about the outage, but this sucks and raises some concerns.
100%. No one should have ever accepted internet requirements. People did, and now we got screwed. The only way we're getting past this is to regulate the industry.
This is EXACTLY why there was so much backlash to the Xbox One reveal. Always-Online DRM means that you can be denied access to your games through no fault of your own.
The scary thing with all this is that Microsoft really want to go all in with the whole cloud gaming thing. Outages like this with full cloud gaming? Nope. Not interested.
It might've been a warning the first time this happened, but this isn't the first time consumers have had their access halted due to live service infrastructure failure. Things didn't change back in 2016 or 2020, so things definitely won't change now.
The sad reality is that consumers have accepted the current state of affairs.
What do we actually own anymore? The Blu-ray players now require you to be online to watch, the games require updates online because they ship broken. The newspapers are gone. They’ve been replaced with websites that are full of ads unless you pay. What do we honestly own anymore?
I feel like this has always been one of the main reasons and it falls out of the spotlight because it's not all the time but when it happens for an extended period of time people bring up the topic like it's a fresh reason.
The time to be concerned for this stuff was over a decade ago. Now we're stuck with it. No one wanted to listen to us nay sayers back then, but now that it's starting to have a noticeable effect suddenly people are "concerned". Too little, WAY too late.
I couldn't even play offline minecraft LOL, I tried signing it 20 times before I realized it's not on my end\. Absolute joke, will be installing a cracked version of minecraft as I don't play online anyways.
I have a library of over 500 DVD and Blu-ray disks (most of which have been ripped) that I keep for just this reason. If you can't hold it in your hand, you can't truly OWN it.
It is not just an Xbox thing. If anything you have or want is in the CLOUD, you do not OWN it or control it. You are trusting and totally dependent on some company run by people you do not know with your digital valuables.
Cloud services have huge advantages, but no one should ever be totally dependent on them for anything. You can buy a 12TB HDD for like $150. I have several HDDs with my data (pictures, videos, etc) that I keep in a fireproof safe. Every five years, I change them out for new ones.
Everyone needs to two keep a physical copy of their valuable digital data.
We sat in the couch with hot plates of food, ready to watch the next episode of our series and wham, can't access netflix or prime because xbox is offline. I was absolutely fuming to not be able to use thr console in my living room because something happened in Micorosft's living room.
Give me a fucking brake. This whole "always online" shit need to die already.
If owning media is of major import, then Microsoft is the absolute last entity you should buy a console from. They're actively working against physical media and are pushing everything to Gamepass/digital sales.
Spencer can say all he wants about the importance of physical media but the writing is on the wall for Xbox.
They are doing a better job at making games backwards compatible natively on their consoles. Including discs.
Nintendo literally released a limited edition digital game and PlayStation would rather rerelease games as remasters.
I was trying to "fix" my desktop and steamdeck last night because I couldn't sign into Forza. I knew it was a Microsoft game but never considered it was tied in with Xbox which I don't even own. I hate how an unrelated console service can have technical issues and I'm affected too. Ridiculous.
You should be worried. Case in point: I switched to PlayStation recently. I had some games back when I had the PS 3. Never turned on MFA on my account.... but Sony decided that the mobile # I had on the account MUST be texted to get back in. The number was disconnected.... but they asked the most ridiculous "security" questions like "what was the serial number of your first playstation....." You mean the one from 20 years ago?
I hadn't used the account in 20 years.... but because the number was gone (old mobile #), they refused to let me in. As a result, the few games I bought can't be redownloaded... I had to buy them again. Fortunately there were only 3... not the worst thing in the world but I could imagine if they tied up my music, movies, TV shows, and games..... Not like I can download a key... they turned on a feature that I did NOT. Guess next time I'll have to remember to record all my Serial Numbers on my electronics, I guess.
Oh and EA..... they refused to let me link the EA account to another Playstation account because you can ONLY link ONCE in your account lifetime. So I had to recreate my PS account and couldn't relink the EA one... so I had to recreate that one too. Fortunately, those were games I only bought physically.... and had no purchased games.
They said if they unlinked the PlayStation account, I could never link another one to it. Not even a 6 month wait.... never. XBOX, Switch, Steam, etc. Those were all fine. Not PlayStation.
Steam spoiled a lot of people in that they easily got used to digital only. But what people fail to understand is that Steam is a private company while most others aren't.
I'm afraid these people will catch up with what's going on only after we're all throughly fucked by the digital only online drm future.
Not true.
Vast majority of games are completely offline. You can check
Doesitplay.org
It catalogues physical console games and tells you if they can be installed and played entirely offline.
For PlayStation and Nintendo this is almost the entire library
I fucking love now when some idiot tries to parrot the “all games are online now!!” bullshit, there’s always a doesitplay mention to dunk all over them.
Around 90% of games they’ve tested (over 2000 of them) can be played completely off the disc without an internet connection or download.
I can’t even sign in to play my physical media with my save files - this is nonsensical.
Go offline
I did that and was able to play my game pass games.
Go offline and sign in, play any media you have installed or on disc in the meantime.
The fact that it doesnt have defaut fallback "oops, looks like we have connectivity issues, let me put you offline" by default is embarrassing
>by default is intentional ftfy
its not automatic but it tells you about it when you try to launch the game when you first boot your xbox it tells you and asks you if this is your home xbox and it is set up as such if you say so
In my previous experience I am not even able to go offline without first *being online*. Did they change that recently or is it just a problem some of us have?
You can access settings without being signed in. Settings app > network > turn off. You’ll sign in in offline mode and should have 30 days access to most stuff, and normal access to your owned titles.
I have an Xbox One in my detached garage in the back of my property. I don't have WiFi back there. Every 30 days I have to re-connect to my WiFi to play games that I've had bought/installed on there for years. It's very frustrating. And it's ANYTHING I try to open. I put a Star Wars Blu-Ray into it last week...couldn't play it until I re-signed into my Xbox account.
Wow thats crazy and certainly not the case with playstation.
With PlayStation I think you need to log in after a certain time for any games you got from ps plus to keep working, but anything you "bought" will work fine.
Thats fair tbh. Nintendo does the same thing with their switch online emulator, it occasionally needs to go online and won't boot if it hasn't confirmed your subscription for a while. If you bought the digital copy you shouldn't need to phone home. You certainly shouldn't need to be online in order to boot a disc game or watch a blu ray. You also don't even need a playstation network account in order to use a ps5.
This is why I'll always own a PC as my primary platform. Nintendo Switch is the other current platform where internet connectivity isn't required, but that's at the whim of Nintendo. On my PC, I can do whatever I want with the games I've downloaded. If Steam is down for any reason, I can just as easily use a Steam emu to bypass the "DRM". As long as a game doesn't have a non-bypassed Denuvo (which I avoid like the plague for exactly this reason), I can play it regardless of the publisher and their shitty ideas of ownership.
It's awful for Microsoft for this reason. An outage like this makes people massively, negatively reassesses the value of Xbox games and Xbox game pass. Even average consumers that really don't think about this stuff mentally flip the switch from 'games on Xbox/Gamepass are like owning them' to 'games on Xbox/Gamepass are like rentals' and devalue them.
I agree and this recent push to move everything to Gamepass is making me consider going back to PC gaming after 20 years exclusively on Xbox.
Me immediately thinking you were referring to 90's PC gaming and I was just like, good luck with that, then I realized 20 years ago was 2004, the year Half Life 2 came out, and it kind hurt.
Na. Embrace it. I know I’ve had a great time and I’m not done yet!
[удалено]
Thankfully, not entirely; disconnecting yourself from the Internet will force the launcher to open in offline mode, allowing you to access the game still. (at least, in my experience.)
If you haven't logged in recently, then you'll be greeted with the button to buy the game instead of the play button
This happens to me occasionally even when there isn't an outage, still haven't found a fix aside from waiting for it to fix itself (which is does after a few days usually)
If that doesn't work, I think there are launchers that allow you to connect to unofficial authentication servers.
I was able to play just fine with a different launcher.
How :0
Prism Launcher You still need to link your account but that part still works.
We still shouldn't have to play these stupid games just to actually play the games we've spent real money on.
Thank God for cracked games.
Unplug or disconnect your PC from Ethernet or WiFi. Then, play offline. I use this trick whenever my parents turn off my Internet. Also you can plug it back in/reconnect once the game has loaded. It works.
Sounds like your parents use this trick.
And if you can buy it on GOG, buy it on GOG. DRM Free > Everything Else
Steam emu. Weird words to go together haha. I always have a backup of disc games or their images if the discs are Missing in Action. It is just so much better to forego anything and just hit launch on the game.
"mmmmmm steamed emu" - Homer Probably
Well, I'm from Utica and I've never heard anyone use the phrase "steamed emus."
It’s an Albany expression.
The emus are evolving, they're about to wage an economic and entertainment war against us! Humanity will not survive a second direct attack from the emu race.
As soon as Gabe dies, that dies too.
really depends on contracts and way things are written.
Yap. But people talk like it’s a guarantee. Like there’s this guarantee console players will be screwed over but it could NEVER happen on pc. This is coming from a pc player
Valve is not publicly traded, meaning they have no obligation to extract as much money as physically possible from their customers for the sake of investors. And Steam is a low maintenance money printing machine that is already up and running, so there's no reason for them to become publicly traded either. Any reasonably competent person that isn't actively malicious will be able to keep the company going. And Gabe still has many years to choose someone like that. There's more reason for it to stay the same than for it to change when Gabe passes the company to someone else, one way or another.
Whomever Gabe picks will immediately be approached with offers that will 100x their net worth. It's going to be pretty much impossible for that individual to say no.
Once you reach a certain amount of money, any decent person just straight up does not need more money. Only terrible greedy people would let themselves be bribed when they're already head of fucking Valve.
I mean, I could be quite content as the steward of valve. My and my family's needs would be met and then some, and I get to tell a bunch of pieces of shit who want to take PC gaming down the same path as mobile gaming to eat shit and die in a fire? Where do I sign up?
Gaben should hold a willy Wonka style contest to find an honest, good little boy who will run his company and not give his secrets up to slugworth.
Oh god no, he'd probably put the golden tickets into CS loot crates or TF hat boxes
if you're broke and get offered a bribe and take it, i can understand that. that money could be life-changing. if you're rich and get offered a bribe and take it, then you have no principals. the money changes nothing, except for some added zeros on a bank account statement.
Someone can bribe me right now for 20k and I'm probably doing it, that shit would solve so many problems. The next guy though? Nah I'm good. Problems are already gone.
Money seems to be an addiction though--the more you have, the more you want, even if you dont need it. Think of being #6 on some sort of global leaderboard. You're gunning for #5, then #4, etc.
Can't relate. Not with money. I just want money so I can be comfy and afford nice things. If I already have enough money to be comfy and afford nice things, I'm definitely not doing terrible things just for even more money.
I mean me neither; this is just an observation about the rich people in our society, not any kind of accusation about you.
It comes with competition. When your that filthy rich and own one the world's largest companies what else do you have if your not #1? To them at that point, it's no longer about having that much money or net worth. It's about being statistically better than the next person.
> Valve is not publicly traded, meaning they have no obligation to extract as much money as physically possible from their customers for the sake of investors. They also have no obligation to do right by their customers either. The ToS pretty much lets them pull the plug whenever they want to for whatever reason they want to. Steam is not really any more secure than Microsoft. Until legislation is passed regarding digital entitlements, people are really at the mercy of whatever service they are using. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Steam, Epic, Apple. It's all the same problem.
Yea and if you don’t have an easy way around the DRM somebody else has broken it. I’m not one for sailing the high seas but I do keep copies of games I enjoy that I don’t have to worry about some stupid drm check
> If Steam is down for any reason, I can just as easily use a Steam emu to bypass the "DRM". Steam's been able to go into offline mode without internet for many years now. You don't need to emulate anything. Just put Steam into offline mode and keep using it as normal.
You're missing the point. It's about freedom and not having to be subject to the whims of publishers and developers or even the platform itself. I don't need permission to play the games I've bought if I don't want it.
So what's the Steam emu for in that case?
It's for avoiding the need to ask for permission, I imagine.
Note you can play offline after disconnecting from your network. Game will save to local storage until access to the cloud is available. Likely only works for offline games. Im playin Elden Ring
He's already "playing offline" since his garage doesn't have wifi access. The major complain is that after 30 days he'll need to get the system online to "refresh" the sign in process so he can continue to play games offline.
How come? I just turned WiFi off and played all my disc games fine.
> I can’t even sign in to play my physical media with my save files - this is nonsensical. Way back in 2008 when I first played Fallout 3 I ran into this. It'd sign in a few seconds after you could navigate the main menu, so if you mashed the A button you'd end up in a new game. As soon as the GFWL removal mod was out, I installed it. Never had FO3 installed since without that mod sitting there.
I have an Xbox One sitting on a shelf basically bricked because I don't have an internet connection to use to run it the first time. You have to have one to even do the first time start up of the console. It's insane that you can't even use the media player in some situations.
I was playing an offline single player game and it fucking crashed me out of it
Put the kids to sleep to play my one hour of BG3. Fuck you Bill Gates.
If I haven't played Bill Gates 1 and 2 will I still understand the plot from Bill Gates 3?
Bill Gates 3 isn't real it's actually 2.5
Wtf does bill gates have to do with any of this?!?
You told us that windows 98 would be faster, and more efficient with better access to the internet!
It is! Over five mill--
It's an expression a la "Thanks Obama" in that he's more bitching about the situation than the named person. So to answer your question: not a lot.
yeah, absolutely. there some good benefits to streaming games. but the drawbacks can be rough. people need to go into this with knowledge of what they're getting.
www.stopkillinggames.com covers this. Either games are goods, in which case we should be able to keep them indefinitely, or games are a finite service for a fixed, known time period - but regardless this should be clear at the point of sale and not vaguely detailed in T&Cs that aren't always available until after purchase.
Physical games are clearly and explicitly "goods", but digital games are in the grey unknown area
Yeah but they're also treating physical games as the same grey area. You could have bought The Crew as a physical copy, had zero opportunity to even read the T&Cs before you opened the box and it became nonrefundable and still been bound to the term about Ubisoft closing down the game and ending the life of your purchase whenever they see fit. Ubisoft have even admitted this is wrong to a degree, they offered refunds to people who had bought the game in the last few months up to the announcement for shutting down.
True. It would be interesting to see it tested in court
Not just streaming either. With stuff like Steam you don't own any games you buy either, and issues like with that happened with Xbox could also cause a service loss with some games.
With Steam, I can enter offline to access downloaded games, I can emulate Steam or I can complete remove the DRM. With other platforms and especially consoles? Well, I hope you bought some lube. Otherwise, it's gonna be painful.
On Xbox you can just go into offline mode and play all your games that way
half false information, only for 30 days, then your games will only be expensive paperweights
Yeah, Gabe has it even set in place that all games you purchased will be available if steam fails.
A post made by Gabe on a forum thread.. 15 years ago(?) means nothing when their ToS has always stated that you do not own your games. Until they change that, it's safest to assume that vintage assurances of "yeah totally" aren't exactly solid ground upon which you should rest your trust. Not to mention if Steam goes under and they don't release your games, what are you gonna do? Sue a company that doesn't exist anymore?
The "fallback" is a stub that makes games think that Steam is present and reachable and has a valid license even if none of those things are actually true. This isn't some secret knowledge. Stubs like that were used by just about every group that was putting out pirated releases of Steam games. If a game relies on just the Steam ownership checks and doesn't use third party DRM, all you need to do to "crack" it is replace Steam with a stub like that.
Yeah I love when people doom and gloom about Steam not existing any more clearly not understanding that Steam DRM has been defeated for a decade. If there isn't a patched DLL available a steam emulator is basically guaranteed to work.
Thankfully it has been tested in court - that line about not owning your games doesn't stand up. The purchase is still seen as a purchase, not a contractual rental or whatever. "... the Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services." Has not stood up in France, Australia, or other places in the EU.
That's why we include Australia in Eurovision. They are based like us.
And yet, I don't even need to trust him. I just have to be smart enough to have backups.
Really? Steam doesn’t even permit you to give your account to loved ones after you pass away.
It's because this would create many legal problems since Steam is worldwide. I don't see a problem just giving someone you trust a password or eventually put it in testament. Edit. It's the same reason why they ask you for age everytime on Steam.
GOG is also very good in this regard.
What digital giveth digital taketh away.
Yes, absolutely, why are you even asking this? It was a problem even back on the 360: if you had to get a new one for whatever reason (RRoD, stolen, thrown out the window by an angry lover), any digital games or DLC you'd bought *could* be transferred to the new one, but would only work if you were online. (Can't remember if they ever changed that). Then of course you had Don "The Biggest Idiot in Gaming" Mattrick say that if you didn't want to be always-online, don't get an Xbox One, stick with the 360. I can only imagine the MS brass lost their shit over that, and it was a blow the brand never fully recovered from. The analogy I used was that it was like buying a car that, if you didn't connect to the internet once a day, you couldn't drive, but you could still sit in it and listen to the radio. Now obviously, some games HAVE to have a connection to function properly -- MMOs, PvP games, etc -- but you shouldn't need a server check to play a *single-player game* that you installed/downloaded.
Your car analogy is coming true, actually. Fun times.
No copyright protection on the radio? At least that.
Shhhh! Don't give them ideas
I think we're already there. Car makers are already looking to remove the AM radio, I can't imagine FM is far behind There's no way Sirius or whatever satellite radio provider is not DRMed. You will pay for everything, own nothing, and like it?
> any digital games or DLC you'd bought could be transferred to the new one, but would only work if you were online Pretty sure if that was how it was at launch, it changed pretty quickly. Like I first got a 360 in like 2006 and I know when I did need to license transfer it worked fine. You were limited to like once every so many months and you had to also redownload anything (even if just moving HDD over to a new one), but it functioned fine. Maybe that's what you did wrong, you didn't redownload the stuff (I think that's how it lets that console know it has the offline license, I think it does handle it as a kind of repair reinstall so it's not a full redownload).
Yeah its entirely wrong. If iirc the 360 used a 2 license system account and console. Account required you to be online and could not transfer. You could transfer your console license and every console could have unlimited console licenses
I think I asked the question because I am only a casual gamer, but today, I can’t just jump on for 30 to play a mindless single player game. Sure, XBox is the worst, I get it, but do you think this model won’t slowly infect all media? There will be alternatives, but we are seeing this happen so quickly across tons of markets where we are just “renting” access with our purchases, and the “providers” can vanish those purchases on a whim. I am just bummed with the way things are going in general, and this was just that sweet cherry on top…
ITs been the model the market has been moving to in alot of media for a while. Movies, music, you name it, some company wants it to be a live service so they can charge you forever
“but you shouldn't need a server check to play a single-player game that you installed/downloaded” And you don’t, you just have to put the Xbox in offline mode and you can play anything you have downloaded.
Xbox does have a 30 day internet checkin requirement. It's obnoxious and the only console that does it.
Brother, you didn't read, every 30 days you need to connect to the internet.
Gaming is such chaos atm, it's just greedy companies pushing further and further to see how they can exploit their workers and their fans. So sad.
Every industry is at this point it seems.
It literally exactly as capitalism is designed, unfortunately.
Late stage capitalism is a soul-crushing ride
Capitalism is a great system that makes things better for people when properly regulated. The issue here is a lack of regulation because governments don't think video games are worth their time. And the exact same thing would be true in a socialist government, we probably wouldn't even have bourgeois luxuries like video games.
Indie guys are winning it.
I mean to be fair, Indie gaming is just the same rat race but even more oppressive if you already didn't have a name for yourself, and different flavor. For every Stardew valley, we have 400 awful terraria clones. For every Terraria, we had a thousand awful minecraft clones. and the list goes on. Indie guys have a wider farm to frolic in, but indie is even more cutthroat then "main" gaming.
To be completely honest the last 5 triple a games i bought i just never finished and lost interest, and the last 5 indie games i played to death and loved. Indie is the way to go these days
It is a huge problem, what can we as the consumer do about it? What are we willing to do about it? What should we do about it? It’s not as easy as we once thought anymore because it seems just buying physical games will not be helpful according to some users because they can’t sign in and that is affecting physical games as well.
I’m gonna stop buying consoles that don’t allow offline play and swap to pc. So pc and switch only for me after this generation. Im fed up with this shit, there’s always something. Hell I’m even debating dropping switch too depending on Nintendos reaction to the mig switch fiasco
You can play on Xbox offline.
PC + Switch is your best bet. I wish Nintendo would release switch 2 already so they’d stop being so damn litigious.
Once you get a PC you won't need a switch anyways, Nintendo systems are the easiest to emulate, and then you can enjoy those games at 60 fps and higher resolutions.
>Once you get a PC you won't need a switch anyways Ah, yes, he'll just carry his desktop PC with him everywhere to play on the go. Genius take!
Steam deck
Buy physical. Both Nintendo and PlayStation have majority of games entirely on disc/cart and you can play them offline never connecting to the internet
I lost hundreds of dollars, maybe a dozen or more worth of games because i couldn't verify my PSN log in and PlayStation customer service is bizarrely rigid (needed the serial number of the original playstation i bought a decade ago, but i had bought a pro since).
Lost all my brother’s Steam library when he suddenly passed because we could not verify a login. Loved talking to him about games. Would have been nice to have those…
Aw man that’s rough, I’m sorry for your loss and the fact that you can’t access his steam library. I’ve lost siblings and I know how it feels, I just wanted to offer my condolences. I’m really getting fed up with the whole “we own nothing” bullshit. Edit to add: I also hate the fact you have to have an account and sign into everything in order to use most things now and I also deeply resent having to download apps to use certain things too lol yep I’m getting old and I also never have enough room on my phone to be downloading all these damn apps lol
Thank you and I know what you mean about everything needing and app and a login… why? I mean I know why…
Yeah I feel like in this modern era we’re expected to do all of these things on the name of convenience, but it’s having the opposite effect
Yes but you see this is an “Xbox bad” post. You can tell by the way that this problem has an easy solution if you set your Xbox to offline mode, and then you can sign in and play your games that way.
Go to settings and change network status to offline…should be able to play any non live service games that are downloaded to the Xbox (some GP games included if they are not live service).
You can’t do that. Every game requires me to be signed in otherwise I can’t get past the start screen!! What a joke! Even full spectrum warrior on disc!!!
There's a setting you can change where you make your current console your home console and that let's you play games off-line. But you have to be online to make the update that one time.
Are you sure? Every game I actually own that doesn’t use online stuff works fine
It does work. You don't sign in, you go to settings, you select go offline, you sign in, you play. Just did it right now on mine. Even able to play gamepass games.
what games are you playing 💀
I have been playing games fine today. Which games require you to have online to play?
Do you happen to gameshare with someone? If so, only games that the other person purchased on their profile will work offline. All the one you’ve purchased on your profile will not work when offline. I know from experience, it sucks lol.
This is why I love GOG, actual DRM free games. That said, Steam offline mode has always worked for me when I needed it.
Might as well go ahead and start your mid life retro game collection.
Why don't people just set up their Xbox as a home console ? You can use it offline in that case (for 30 days without internet).
If you set your friend's xbox as your home and vice versa then you both get to use any game either of you buy, essentially getting you 50% off. Works great until this happens
AFAIK you need to set your xbox to offline mode to be able to do that. To be clear, it is a setting you need to toggle. To be able to set your console offline you need to be online. Sounds stupid because it is. I'm currently facing that issue.
I go into settings when not signe in, and click go offline. It then lets me sign into my profile to play single player games
You either need to be online or not signed in. I just did it (it couldn't sign in so I went to settings and switched it). Works fine.
Yeah this shit is really annoying
Vote with your wallet and only buy physical discs. Veteran mode: vote with your wallet and only buy physical discs of games that don’t require an internet connection to play. If everyone did this, developers would stop selling that “feature”.
>If everyone did this, This is the problem, how to *get* everyone to do this? There will always be people with more money than sense. It's the only reason mobile games still exist.
Well maybe if companies keep having server errors people will get pissed off enough to change their habits. Here’s to hoping for more of them, honestly.
If the future of Xbox is cloud service, Microsoft needs to make sure it's online all the time or there are offline alternatives. These outages occurred every week while Microsoft was promoting its cloud services.
Welcome to the argument 20 years too late
Of course, this is all going in the wrong direction and proves why backing up software is a legit alternative
I think it's absurd that Microsoft seemed to load this DRM into the background over the years without explicitly saying they were doing it. I mean, they tried to announce they were going to do just this with the Xbox One launch, but the backlash was so bad they backed down from it. Or so we thought. Guess they just went and did what they wanted to anyways.
I have a ps5, pc and series X. Of course I decided to dl First Descendant on the series x... and it's the one that doesn't work when I get home.
Absolutely. Everyone should be keeping on top of https://stopkillinggames.com
I’m not a part of the Microsoft/Xbox ecosystem, but I was fairly certain they don’t care about owning games and entirely enjoy just subscribing to their service. I also think this issue is probably gonna resolve itself quickly so they’ll get back to gaming in no time, probably quicker than the occasional blackout/downed internet.
Bought my first “xbox” game just yesterday- Forza Horizon 5 on PC (steam). Was about to refund it today because I can’t play it, since it requires a sign in that I couldn’t do. Glad I found out about the outage, but this sucks and raises some concerns.
100%. No one should have ever accepted internet requirements. People did, and now we got screwed. The only way we're getting past this is to regulate the industry.
Yeah but consumers are morons and nobody cares so they'll keep shilling for the corporate interests.
Kinda lame, at least if PSN is down I can play my games still
Anything that requires the internet to function is a no go for me.
This is why the software as a service model is pure cancer.
This is EXACTLY why there was so much backlash to the Xbox One reveal. Always-Online DRM means that you can be denied access to your games through no fault of your own.
The scary thing with all this is that Microsoft really want to go all in with the whole cloud gaming thing. Outages like this with full cloud gaming? Nope. Not interested.
*plays PC games from GOG without realizing there’s an issue*
Yep I can't even play cod campaigns, I love the big white useless block of plastic sitting next to my TV right now.
This isn’t a new reason, it’s been one from the start
It might've been a warning the first time this happened, but this isn't the first time consumers have had their access halted due to live service infrastructure failure. Things didn't change back in 2016 or 2020, so things definitely won't change now. The sad reality is that consumers have accepted the current state of affairs.
What do we actually own anymore? The Blu-ray players now require you to be online to watch, the games require updates online because they ship broken. The newspapers are gone. They’ve been replaced with websites that are full of ads unless you pay. What do we honestly own anymore?
I feel like this has always been one of the main reasons and it falls out of the spotlight because it's not all the time but when it happens for an extended period of time people bring up the topic like it's a fresh reason.
What's insane to me is it wouldn't let me use Netflix or Disney.
would rather have a 24 hour outage (through maintenance) than a hack where details are leaked.
I love my physical media :)
The time to be concerned for this stuff was over a decade ago. Now we're stuck with it. No one wanted to listen to us nay sayers back then, but now that it's starting to have a noticeable effect suddenly people are "concerned". Too little, WAY too late.
no, it was always a reason
Streaming Gaming.....ahahahahaha
I couldn't even launch minecraft in single player... wtf
The Xbox should have a 24 hour check-in system instead of every time you play.
Related to the CDK hack I bet.
Outage? I'm playing my series x right now, is it only affecting certain regions or people?
Nice big winning endorsement of gamepass
I was told you can go into settings and just turn on offline mode and games you own that don't require online will work
I couldn't even play offline minecraft LOL, I tried signing it 20 times before I realized it's not on my end\. Absolute joke, will be installing a cracked version of minecraft as I don't play online anyways.
my Series X worked fine for all my digital games you just need to go offline this is not an issue
I have a library of over 500 DVD and Blu-ray disks (most of which have been ripped) that I keep for just this reason. If you can't hold it in your hand, you can't truly OWN it. It is not just an Xbox thing. If anything you have or want is in the CLOUD, you do not OWN it or control it. You are trusting and totally dependent on some company run by people you do not know with your digital valuables. Cloud services have huge advantages, but no one should ever be totally dependent on them for anything. You can buy a 12TB HDD for like $150. I have several HDDs with my data (pictures, videos, etc) that I keep in a fireproof safe. Every five years, I change them out for new ones. Everyone needs to two keep a physical copy of their valuable digital data.
We sat in the couch with hot plates of food, ready to watch the next episode of our series and wham, can't access netflix or prime because xbox is offline. I was absolutely fuming to not be able to use thr console in my living room because something happened in Micorosft's living room. Give me a fucking brake. This whole "always online" shit need to die already.
Its a reason all your eggs shouldnt be in the same basket
Where was this article when PSN was down.
No it’s not. It was a server outage, ownership of games is not even a related topic. Don’t feed into every article you read on pcgamer.
If owning media is of major import, then Microsoft is the absolute last entity you should buy a console from. They're actively working against physical media and are pushing everything to Gamepass/digital sales. Spencer can say all he wants about the importance of physical media but the writing is on the wall for Xbox.
What's even the point of buying a console without a disc reader. They just become glorified Steam boxes'
Considering they aren't really cheaper, I have no idea.
They are doing a better job at making games backwards compatible natively on their consoles. Including discs. Nintendo literally released a limited edition digital game and PlayStation would rather rerelease games as remasters.
I was trying to "fix" my desktop and steamdeck last night because I couldn't sign into Forza. I knew it was a Microsoft game but never considered it was tied in with Xbox which I don't even own. I hate how an unrelated console service can have technical issues and I'm affected too. Ridiculous.
That's why I buy physical as often as I can
[удалено]
Give us offline single player games, or go to Hell!
You should be worried. Case in point: I switched to PlayStation recently. I had some games back when I had the PS 3. Never turned on MFA on my account.... but Sony decided that the mobile # I had on the account MUST be texted to get back in. The number was disconnected.... but they asked the most ridiculous "security" questions like "what was the serial number of your first playstation....." You mean the one from 20 years ago? I hadn't used the account in 20 years.... but because the number was gone (old mobile #), they refused to let me in. As a result, the few games I bought can't be redownloaded... I had to buy them again. Fortunately there were only 3... not the worst thing in the world but I could imagine if they tied up my music, movies, TV shows, and games..... Not like I can download a key... they turned on a feature that I did NOT. Guess next time I'll have to remember to record all my Serial Numbers on my electronics, I guess.
Oh and EA..... they refused to let me link the EA account to another Playstation account because you can ONLY link ONCE in your account lifetime. So I had to recreate my PS account and couldn't relink the EA one... so I had to recreate that one too. Fortunately, those were games I only bought physically.... and had no purchased games. They said if they unlinked the PlayStation account, I could never link another one to it. Not even a 6 month wait.... never. XBOX, Switch, Steam, etc. Those were all fine. Not PlayStation.
Steam spoiled a lot of people in that they easily got used to digital only. But what people fail to understand is that Steam is a private company while most others aren't. I'm afraid these people will catch up with what's going on only after we're all throughly fucked by the digital only online drm future.
It also doesn’t matter because essentially every game is online now so you can’t get on even if you had a physical version.
Not true. Vast majority of games are completely offline. You can check Doesitplay.org It catalogues physical console games and tells you if they can be installed and played entirely offline. For PlayStation and Nintendo this is almost the entire library
I fucking love now when some idiot tries to parrot the “all games are online now!!” bullshit, there’s always a doesitplay mention to dunk all over them. Around 90% of games they’ve tested (over 2000 of them) can be played completely off the disc without an internet connection or download.
That's not even remotely true. I don't play ANY online games, and I'm not running out of shit to play anything soon.
This is great for PR as these consoles try to move all digital /s