Perks of the digital age! All DriveClub versions will be withdrawn from sale on 31 Augusy 2019 and all the series online functionality will cease on 31 March 2019
But it's fine because it isn't like we are paying anything to keep the servers running...oh wait
PS: 20 March 2020 for the closure of servers. And that URL is linking to the wrong story.
This was brilliant news. Especially as I realized the PS+ version my PS3 needed Double the storage to play the U.K Digital vers (Only own Japanese Copy at mo).
Replacement PS4 is already a jet engine when playing games, only had it 3 months. I tell you this hardware is an absolute f*****g heap of s**t.
Sending it back to Sony again. Completely unacceptable.
Yeah, I've had many PS4 experiences completely ruined by the noise level but the latest PS4 Pro model (with a figure 8 mains inlet) is a vast improvement. It still gets loud, but nowhere near as often or for as long.
Here's a bit of a thought that passed through my head.
I just received a survey from Sony asking why I let my PSN+ sub lapse. Thinking on it there's the unavoidable element that PSN+ is less valuable than it used to be but on the other side of it there's the other great concern - GAAS
See, more and more publishers and devs are headed to this model, trying to engage gamers in a single gamer for a longer and more profitable period. The trouble is that the market can only sustain so many. Then there's the trending issue, it's why we have the likes of the BR style games along with the Destiny first and third person alikes as companies chase what is popular.
The trouble is eventually the market circles the same franchises. Call of Duty - Battlefield - Assassin's Creed - Fortnite - Overwatch etc
Once you've had enough of them well, things are alright but options start to dry up because many aren't seeking having to make a new game, instead they want you to keep playing the old one year in and year out so once you're tired of the current crop... most other stuff doesn't necessitate a Plus subscription. In the end the sub becomes another expense to GAAS games you're tired of. I'm curious as to what, if any, impact GAAS has had on giving some no reason to continue with subs they used to not think much of renewing
Thing is, if Fortnite had been a standard £60 retail release it would have been discounted to £20 and in the bargain bin within a couple of weeks. Which seems to happen with all new games after the initial release window. As it stands, Epic are just printing money with all the sales of different skins and the Battle Passes.
Now, I’m not saying this is a good thing but the gaming landscape has certainly changed and publishers are having to try different things to keep up with the ever increasing costs of development and maintaining servers. It seems that they either go with this model or try to sell you a Season Pass for an obscene amount of moneys on top of an initially already expensive game.
I don’t think anyone has the perfect answer to it all yet…
We're close to jumping the shark, IMO as an old fart who doesn't want game passes and skins (or even exclusively MP games, if I'm honest). It's not just the old "afraid of change" thing, it's the addition of features I don't want at the expense of the ones that I do - e.g. tight single player experiences and narrative exposition.
We're not there yet, there being folks like me leaving these shores for more familiar (i.e retro) experiences, but I think the direction of mainstream gaming is diverging strongly from my own.
We're close to jumping the shark, IMO as an old fart who doesn't want game passes and skins (or even exclusively MP games, if I'm honest). It's not just the old "afraid of change" thing, it's the addition of features I don't want at the expense of the ones that I do - e.g. tight single player experiences and narrative exposition.
We're not there yet, there being folks like me leaving these shores for more familiar (i.e retro) experiences, but I think the direction of mainstream gaming is diverging strongly from my own.
I'm not sure if I totally agree we're leaving single player experiences behind to be honest. It's something that's been bandied around for at least a decade as an idea now, and while we've definitely seen a growth in multiplayer-oriented experiences, I'm not sure it's totally been at the expensive of single player, narrative driven ones.
If you look at the exclusives that Sony have had such immense commercial and critical success with, for example, they're pretty much all third person, single player action adventure games. Those games are extremely popular and I don't see that diminishing in favour of games built around season passes and skin purchases.
In parallel you've got stuff like the successfully rebooted Wolfenstein and Doom franchises, the Tomb Raider games, Nintendo's stuff...I don't think single player games are going anywhere.
What I actually do think has happened instead is that the range of games on sale has continued to expand. We now see more games coming out than ever before, in a growing range of styles. A lot of those super AAA triple titles are aiming for the GaaS, always-online approach, but there are plenty of titles that aren't.
It's hard not to get downbeat about all the rubbish that gamers have to deal with on a daily basis. But there are still some great games being released and the rise of digital distribution, more independants, VR, online and crowdfunding has hopefully pushed some of that.
That said the reduction of single player experiences is based on credible evidence. Whether the move of franchises to online; Fallout 76, the lack of DLC for GTAV or RDR2 etc. Even in this last week we've seen detailed confirmation EA cancelled a single player focused Dragon Age 4 for an online GaaS/Live Service game instead. Also we've seen some of the major western publishers more aggressively monitise their single player games, i.e. Shadow of War, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided etc. In some cases seeing games massively expand on their duration, which is hard not to put down to more aggressive monitisation.
Maybe it's more that the major western pubs will make less single player games, or monitise them like a Live Service (I still think EA's new Fallen Jedi game will be their Assassin's Creed-alike with more microtransactions added in). But maybe as we've seen some multiplayer games, future single players games can come from indies in the way online games like PUBG, Fortnite or Warframe have disrupted the market. I think there's still classics like Divinity Original Sin, or Subnautica etc. that are far more enticing or engaging than some of the stuff coming out of the big western publishers now.
And that probably where I agree with [MENTION=5490]wakka[/MENTION], in that we have more choice now that we did 10+ years ago. Just have to pick your battles I think.
I know this isn’t a good way to think because it contributes to gaming going down the toilet, but I don’t care about GaaS and not actually owning my digital games. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of any game on my PS3 or PS4 that I’d want to play 5-10 years down the line(other than retro stuff like Jet Set Radio).
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