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by nextparadigms 4885 days ago
If this is true no one will buy the console, no matter what bells and whistles they add on top to make it "feel right". It's not right.
4 comments

No one?

Sadly I'm not so sure about that.

I would definitely skip it though, but not that many people really care.

People said that about Diablo 3, and it went on to be one of the best selling PC games ever made.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_3#Sales

Only because of pre sale hype. Not many still playing compared to what could have been.
Does that really matter? The always on DRM issue was known long before the game launched. If it was going to have a serious effect on sales of the game, it would have. You can't really argue against "People won't buy it because of DRM" with "Well people aren't playing it anymore!"
I'm sure the number of people who continue to play the game is at the forefront of their thoughts at Activision-Blizzard, not the piles of money they're busy counting.
Well, one could argue that Diablo 3 did well because people played Diablo 2 for so long. Diablo 4 is going to be in a much weaker position.

Blizzard is one of the few companies who cares about that sort of thing.

This certainly hasn't been the case for Steam's always-on DRM.
What's wrong with the platform owner controlling what's run on the platform? Seems pretty standard these days.
It is pretty standard these days and that's what's sad about it. Anything that removes options, and in some cases rights, from the customer for the benefit of the company is bad for consumers in the long run.

For example, the idea that you don't own the software you paid for, but are in fact licensing it, is fairly standard these days. Once it was crazy to think that you couldn't buy software, use it for a while, and then sell it to someone else when you no longer wanted it. These days it's quite standard to think that kind of thing a quaint notion. How has that made things better for the consumer?

From that simple idea that you don't own software but are licensing its use from the company has led us to the notion that you no longer have first-sale doctrine of the product you paid for. What's the next possible step? Whatever it is, I expect it will not be of benefit to consumers.