Rocket League now requires an Epic account to play, even through Steam
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With RL, customers have lost Linux support and are now losing the ability to opt-out of the EGS.
But it's not the only example; Valve's own TF2 increased its minimum system requirements over its lifespan. They may not have stated as much, but the rolling updates eventually made the game unplayable on machines that could play it decently.
Hell, Oculus is going to require a Facebook account.
And so on, there's plenty of examples of game developers breaking a product their users paid for, and with no recourse for them.
User base with low spec machines must not be with it, though, and people may have upgraded hardware over time. There's also the slew of new video games that complete for user attention/money.
Tons of factors to think about!
I feel consumers need better protections against this stuff.
Lots of games will start working again on Linux if we get rid of this stuff. Online gaming with random people is just like networking with random people: you never know who is going to be a malicious actor. People should play only with those they personally know and trust.
There's just no way it's going to work unless there's trust between the people playing. Can't trust randoms.
There's got to be a point where they ought to stop and say "okay, this is as far as we can go with this idea". That point is probably when they start making kernel drivers that own your system for the sake of trying to guarantee a video game hasn't been tampered with. Some of these things don't exactly have a friendly privacy policy either.
You have a choice: roll down the knotted hill where you're certain to smear dog poop on youtself doing so, or roll down the hill that almost never has dogs on it and is frequently mowed and maintained.
Given my druthers I'd prefer the ability to block people I don't want to play with, and have no anti-cheat system.
As an example if you play Warframe on consoles you'll find that you are encountering the same people game after game. So a block list (as a way to punish cheaters) would be useful because you aren't playing with a random selection of the entire world. There's also the case that Warframe is a game where cheating doesn't matter (though some abilities have been modified to prevent griefing).
If a subscription to a game store means it's possible to prevent multiplayer games matching me up with certain other subscribers, I'd much prefer that over the game publisher wanting to install anti-cheat software that takes control over my operating system.
>With RL, customers have lost Linux support and are now losing the ability to opt-out of the EGS.
What should people assume when they buy a game that is more or less entirely multiplayer online? As an example, I paid $20 for Rocket League 2 years ago. Does that mean I get to play it online, in perpetuity, without anything changing? Probably not.
And Epic explicitly refuses to add forums and reviews, which many of us find to be invaluable sources of information.
And Epic has/had atrocious account security; for instance, not verifying email addresses on new accounts.
Those are my personal gripes; you'll find longer lists elsewhere.
Steam has spent a decade plus saying "we're going to make PC gaming a better experience than going to a Gamestop and buying a box with a CD-ROM in it." They've delivered in many ways-- from the technical/distribution space, to shaking price expectations, to providing discoverability for indie creators, to building a community big enough that people can use their reviews as a shopping tool.
Epic came in and made some mealy-mouth comments about "we want to be a lower-margin store so devs keep more cash", but that doesn't directly mean much to the consumer. Rather than offering something inherently compelling, they have to force people into the door with exclusives, forced accounts, and selling dollar bills for 90 cents (subsidized discounts and giveaways.)
A good counterpoint is GOG. They don't match Steam point for point, but they've made a clear niche out of benefits customers can see (no-DRM, and a catalog of retro titles that would be a pain to acquire and run today)
Presumably the Facebook app will integrate a store and the apps will provide telemetry without asking permission.
Users and developers will have to contend with all of them.
There is no reason whatsoever to suppose these will be better than Apple’s approach, and plenty of history to suggest that it will be worse.
Who did you have in mind? Perhaps there is someone I haven’t thought of.
I really think it is the best competitive game (video or otherwise) ever made.
But the flow was confusing because it asked if I wanted to link an account, I clicked "Not now", and then it automatically created an account for me with no input from me and then I could play.
There's a reason we have anti-trust laws. You're comparing a company that sells video game items to less than a few million people to a company that practically controls the digital life of hundreds of millions of people.
If you don’t like Apple you can switch to Android, Lineage OS, or other open source variants. You have dozens and dozens of phones to choose from.
If you don’t like Rocket League you can switch to...?
Which one has the monopoly again?
It's a fact that the iPhone has half that market and that number is only growing since they also have somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of the youth market in the US.
Rocket League skins have no comparison here, whatsoever. Just wanted to make sure that everybody is aware of that.
[0] https://macdailynews.com/2019/05/16/apple-iphones-installed-...
[1] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone-sh...
[2] https://www.techspot.com/news/74108-over-80-us-teens-iphone-...
Most of the time it was benign or hilarious, but enough of the time it was pornography or gore that Valve disabled that feature on its managed servers.
I’m actually just taking the piss out of Epic legal arguments that Apple has a monopoly within their own platform.
Now why is this egregious while Ubisofts uplay launcher isn't? I'm not sure. I assume it's just because uplay has always been there and awful, and this is new.
Take Minecraft for example.[a] One used to be able to buy and play Minecraft without an account. Then Microsoft bought it and the game now requires an XBox Live account![b] Why? Sure, it wasn’t a big deal as I already had a MS account for Windows, but why must I use it?
EDIT: I just checked, and they’ve also added this “feature” to the iOS version as well. Which means a game I spent actual money on now requires me to use an account. As in, people who previously didn’t have to agree to MS’ TOS now do. And it’s too late to “refund” the game.
[a]: My memory may not be the full picture as I play it on and off. I previously played on iOS, but now on the Switch.
[b]: Even local play on the Switch requires a Microsoft account!
Somewhere between me having more or less accidentally created about a dozen (different) Microsoft accounts for all their previous and weird Many-SSO things, the Mojang acquisition and Mojang-internal account migrations it seems like my original 2009 account was just lost... :|
The EULA not being visible definitely sounds illegal, though. Really absurd oversight.
This is the key part, it should be BEFORE you install the update, and with "Do you accept these new terms and wish to install"
Not like it is today
"We have forced these new terms on you, and if you do not accept you lose all access to this game"
as there is no easy way to rollback to the previous version that worked
Rockstar games for instance required a third-party account to play GTA5.
Thank God for brexit, couldn't be having any of that free trade and consumer protections
Edit: Also from the text of the announcement blog post on cross account progression: "Rocket League’s cross-platform progression is made possible with an Epic Games Account. So, creating one or signing into your existing Epic Games Account is the first step of the process. You'll be prompted to do this when you start up Rocket League for the first time after the update. Once that's completed, there are a couple of different ways to connect your Rocket League platforms to your Epic Games Account and complete the process for cross-platform progression. "