Sunday, January 27, 2013

PS4 Used game restriction? - Gaming Agency

PS4 & XBOX Restrict sharing/used games - At 1up.com
I was just told by a friend that PS4 and Xbox were planning to halt access to pre-used games, where in taking a pre-registered game disc from a parent console to a friends house would have a much use as ice to an Eskimo. This not only ruins a crucial social element of gaming relationships forming, strengthening the bond of the game to the user, but affects immersion with the game as your gaming environment is compromised.

It is slightly hazy as to whether the game would be ruled by a linked online account, or purely a one-console recognition access, but either way this affects audience's right of agency. With the rise of online purchasing and authentication - every time being asked to "log in" to one of your million useless game developer log-ons to prove that you did actually buy this copy - which is a rhetorical question, being almost accused of gaming piracy (no log in, no gaming). This sends an almost knee jerk reaction of being frustrated with the text, even before you engage in it, affecting immersion hugely in my opinion. Being the impatient gamer that I am, when i want to escape into my PC, I do so, immediately. Not fumble around with some tacky user name and password sent to a non-existent email that I was never expecting to be used again apart from when I wanted to find thousands of product advertisements.

Also the lack of backward compatibility to previous platform games such as used PS3 games cheats so many die hard PlayStation fans who can no longer receive their fix of gaming nostalgia - that they paid for - when the games are blatantly underspecified for the new system and could be played on them with ease. This breaks the sense of an interlinked console 'family', whereas they are split into different stages of evolution that cannot culminate to create a legacy that gamers can associate themselves with.

Have I missed anything? If anyone has any more opinions on the matter of system restrictions creating a lack of agency I would be very interested to hear from you

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