Quote:
Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant
"It's a service... We are SERVING you, so do exactly what we say and give us all your money!"
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As far as the industry is concerned, that's the basis of a service, isn't it? By offering online services instead of products (the traditional view of a game), power shifts to the content provider who owns and manages everything. Microsoft's DRM solution was a stopgap to shift customer thinking, but it's naive to believe that the vision has changed. It's also naive to believe that they're alone in that vision (and at the end of the day, the backpedaling hasn't changed where developers want to go). As we can see, the always-online game services are being developed in droves.
As always, the customer can choose whether to support it or not. Generally, I spend little money on online games simply because I want a long-term, archivable product.