petition to game devs

I just read an article in this month's Game Informer about how Microsoft is trying to become the only online provider (so to speak) for PC games, and how it would be kinda bad for PC gaming if they did some of the things they are doing to Xbox 360 gamers (read: micropayments). Don't get me wrong, Live is a great service and it really helped online for console gamers, but do we really need it when between Xfire and Vent we have essentially the same thing for free? The scary thing is that Microsoft is supposivley offering large amounts of money to PC developers to make the online for their games exclusive over Live, so I wrote a petition to developers, and I wanted to to see what you guys thought before I posted it on PetitionOnline and made an idiot of myself.

To the PC development community:

We, members of the PC gaming community, humbly request that you not release your upcoming games with online play exclusively over Microsoft's Live service. With the imminent release of the first cross-platform Live game (Shadowrun), it has become clear that Microsoft expects us to pay for services we currently enjoy free of charge. According to the recent IGN preview of Shadowrun (GS didn't like link), voice chat for the entire team and multiplayer matchmaking are limited to Gold subscribers (Silver subscribers only get voice chat with a friend). It is notable that we already have an effective program that mimics many of the services that Microsoft proposes to charge us for (Xfire), and programs such as Ventrilo, as well as the "radios" currently in many games, offer much more robust support for voice communication than Live does. In return for our payment, we get the "privilege" to play with our friends on the Xbox 360, a privilege that according to IGN has led to certain measures being taken to cripple the precision of the ****c mouse and keyboard controls of the PC, in order to bring PC gamers down to the level of Xbox 360 gamers. Also worrying is the system of micropayments that Microsoft has put into place over the Live Marketplace. There have been several reported instances of developers approaching Microsoft with requests to put free content (such as new maps) for their games on the Live Marketplace, only to be told that they are required to charge for it in order to maintain the perception of the value of other marketplace items. PC gamers have been receiving this type of content for free for nearly 15 years now (as well as content made by other users and the mod community), and we see no reason that we should start paying Microsoft for it.

Microsoft isnt gonna force you to use their crap, even if they tried people would find ways around it. just dont buy vista, stick with xp. vista is awful. plus theres always linux. the only reason microsoft can do what they do with the 360 is cuz they own everything about it, all they own for the pc is the software, and people dont need to use the software if they dont want to. plus they wouldnt screw over such a huge market base for them, the gamers.BenTheJamin

Linux is mediocre at best for gaming. And Vista isn't that bad... I like the GUI and when the only PC games I really play alot are CS, UT2004, and MapleStory it really doesn't matter for me. 

I'm for it (what Microsoft is doing) As long as its free to continue playing with pc gamers. I don't mind having the option of paying to play with 360'ers.zero9167

And I quote from this months Game Informer "Right now, Microsoft is in the process of offering substantial finanical incentives for developers and publishers that agree to make their games PC Live "exlusives". What this would mean is that they would function exactly as 360 games: You would have to buy a gold membership to play online. Essentially, you'd be paying for a service that has traditionally been free in PC gaming." And from another part of the article "Behind the public face of Live lies a hard reality: Microsoft wants to turn the traditionally free world of PC multiplayer into a for-pay service under the Live brand." 

if that is the case, i will go back to my awful hobby... creating viruses, PC Viruses...

[QUOTE="zero9167"]I'm for it (what Microsoft is doing) As long as its free to continue playing with pc gamers. I don't mind having the option of paying to play with 360'ers.bloodychimp

And I quote from this months Game Informer "Right now, Microsoft is in the process of offering substantial finanical incentives for developers and publishers that agree to make their games PC Live "exlusives". What this would mean is that they would function exactly as 360 games: You would have to buy a gold membership to play online. Essentially, you'd be paying for a service that has traditionally been free in PC gaming." And from another part of the article "Behind the public face of Live lies a hard reality: Microsoft wants to turn the traditionally free world of PC multiplayer into a for-pay service under the Live brand."

[QUOTE="zero9167"]I'm for it (what Microsoft is doing) As long as its free to continue playing with pc gamers. I don't mind having the option of paying to play with 360'ers.bloodychimp

And I quote from this months Game Informer "Right now, Microsoft is in the process of offering substantial finanical incentives for developers and publishers that agree to make their games PC Live "exlusives". What this would mean is that they would function exactly as 360 games: You would have to buy a gold membership to play online. Essentially, you'd be paying for a service that has traditionally been free in PC gaming." And from another part of the article "Behind the public face of Live lies a hard reality: Microsoft wants to turn the traditionally free world of PC multiplayer into a for-pay service under the Live brand."

[QUOTE="bloodychimp"]

[QUOTE="zero9167"]I'm for it (what Microsoft is doing) As long as its free to continue playing with pc gamers. I don't mind having the option of paying to play with 360'ers.BewilderedRonin

And I quote from this months Game Informer "Right now, Microsoft is in the process of offering substantial finanical incentives for developers and publishers that agree to make their games PC Live "exlusives". What this would mean is that they would function exactly as 360 games: You would have to buy a gold membership to play online. Essentially, you'd be paying for a service that has traditionally been free in PC gaming." And from another part of the article "Behind the public face of Live lies a hard reality: Microsoft wants to turn the traditionally free world of PC multiplayer into a for-pay service under the Live brand."

I guess you don't notice the large MMO's out there. Anyway, good for microsoft. This could free up resources from companies like EA, because they wouldn't have to spend money on hosting servers. 

According to PCGamer, MS released their details on the Live service and said that PC to PC online play would be included in the Silver (free) level, but PC to Console would only be available to Gold (paid accounts) members.

Frankly I'm more willing to believe PCGamer over GI as GI is kind of a hack magazine. Their reviews and previews are constantly behind (and frequently lacking in key info) and I wouldn't be surprised if they're "informants" were as behind the times as the rest of the mag.

here's the link to MS's site where they state what the difference between silver and gold will be:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/mar07/03-14G4WandXboxLIVEPR.mspx

I decided to do some more research and found that both Epic and Infinity Ward (I think that's their name - the guys who make the main CoD games) have disapproved of the idea, and I dont think Blizzard or Valve have any plans to abandon Battle.net and Steam, so I'm not too woried anymore, but I will see how this fall's big releases go, and if it seems a lot of devs are jumping on the Live bandwagon we can see if we have anymore luck petitioning than the cows had with the whole DMC4 situation.

Just as a personal note, I would like to see more PC devs put their games on Steam (I'm looking at you Epic, and Blizzard with your stupid delete-my-Diablo2-account-after-90-days-of-inactivity policy). I think its a great service and as one guy said above, it does a lot of the stuff for PC that Live does for Xbox. 

I just read an article in this month's Game Informer about how Microsoft is trying to become the only online provider (so to speak) for PC games, and how it would be kinda bad for PC gaming if they did some of the things they are doing to Xbox 360 gamers (read: micropayments). Don't get me wrong, Live is a great service and it really helped online for console gamers, but do we really need it when between Xfire and Vent we have essentially the same thing for free? The scary thing is that Microsoft is supposivley offering large amounts of money to PC developers to make the online for their games exclusive over Live, so I wrote a petition to developers, and I wanted to to see what you guys thought before I posted it on PetitionOnline and made an idiot of myself.

 

 

To the PC development community:

We, members of the PC gaming community, humbly request that you not release your upcoming games with online play exclusively over Microsoft's Live service. With the imminent release of the first cross-platform Live game (Shadowrun), it has become clear that Microsoft expects us to pay for services we currently enjoy free of charge. According to the recent IGN preview of Shadowrun (GS didn't like link), voice chat for the entire team and multiplayer matchmaking are limited to Gold subscribers (Silver subscribers only get voice chat with a friend). It is notable that we already have an effective program that mimics many of the services that Microsoft proposes to charge us for (Xfire), and programs such as Ventrilo, as well as the "radios" currently in many games, offer much more robust support for voice communication than Live does. In return for our payment, we get the "privilege" to play with our friends on the Xbox 360, a privilege that according to IGN has led to certain measures being taken to cripple the precision of the ****c mouse and keyboard controls of the PC, in order to bring PC gamers down to the level of Xbox 360 gamers. Also worrying is the system of micropayments that Microsoft has put into place over the Live Marketplace. There have been several reported instances of developers approaching Microsoft with requests to put free content (such as new maps) for their games on the Live Marketplace, only to be told that they are required to charge for it in order to maintain the perception of the value of other marketplace items. PC gamers have been receiving this type of content for free for nearly 15 years now (as well as content made by other users and the mod community), and we see no reason that we should start paying Microsoft for it.

 

bloodychimp

LOL man, its about time you stop beliving evrything you read 

[QUOTE="bloodychimp"]

I just read an article in this month's Game Informer about how Microsoft is trying to become the only online provider (so to speak) for PC games, and how it would be kinda bad for PC gaming if they did some of the things they are doing to Xbox 360 gamers (read: micropayments). Don't get me wrong, Live is a great service and it really helped online for console gamers, but do we really need it when between Xfire and Vent we have essentially the same thing for free? The scary thing is that Microsoft is supposivley offering large amounts of money to PC developers to make the online for their games exclusive over Live, so I wrote a petition to developers, and I wanted to to see what you guys thought before I posted it on PetitionOnline and made an idiot of myself.

 

 

To the PC development community:

We, members of the PC gaming community, humbly request that you not release your upcoming games with online play exclusively over Microsoft's Live service. With the imminent release of the first cross-platform Live game (Shadowrun), it has become clear that Microsoft expects us to pay for services we currently enjoy free of charge. According to the recent IGN preview of Shadowrun (GS didn't like link), voice chat for the entire team and multiplayer matchmaking are limited to Gold subscribers (Silver subscribers only get voice chat with a friend). It is notable that we already have an effective program that mimics many of the services that Microsoft proposes to charge us for (Xfire), and programs such as Ventrilo, as well as the "radios" currently in many games, offer much more robust support for voice communication than Live does. In return for our payment, we get the "privilege" to play with our friends on the Xbox 360, a privilege that according to IGN has led to certain measures being taken to cripple the precision of the ****c mouse and keyboard controls of the PC, in order to bring PC gamers down to the level of Xbox 360 gamers. Also worrying is the system of micropayments that Microsoft has put into place over the Live Marketplace. There have been several reported instances of developers approaching Microsoft with requests to put free content (such as new maps) for their games on the Live Marketplace, only to be told that they are required to charge for it in order to maintain the perception of the value of other marketplace items. PC gamers have been receiving this type of content for free for nearly 15 years now (as well as content made by other users and the mod community), and we see no reason that we should start paying Microsoft for it.

 

knut-am

LOL man, its about time you stop beliving evrything you read

It seems feasible if they pay enough money to the developers or publishers. And anyway, do you run a gaming mag or website? Do you work in the PC gaming industry? Do you interview people in the gaming industry on a regular basis? If you answered all of the above questions 'no', chances are GI knows more about what is going on in the industry than you do.

And its about time for you to learn to spell, but that's beside the point. 

[QUOTE="knut-am"][QUOTE="bloodychimp"]

I just read an article in this month's Game Informer about how Microsoft is trying to become the only online provider (so to speak) for PC games, and how it would be kinda bad for PC gaming if they did some of the things they are doing to Xbox 360 gamers (read: micropayments). Don't get me wrong, Live is a great service and it really helped online for console gamers, but do we really need it when between Xfire and Vent we have essentially the same thing for free? The scary thing is that Microsoft is supposivley offering large amounts of money to PC developers to make the online for their games exclusive over Live, so I wrote a petition to developers, and I wanted to to see what you guys thought before I posted it on PetitionOnline and made an idiot of myself.

 

 

To the PC development community:

We, members of the PC gaming community, humbly request that you not release your upcoming games with online play exclusively over Microsoft's Live service. With the imminent release of the first cross-platform Live game (Shadowrun), it has become clear that Microsoft expects us to pay for services we currently enjoy free of charge. According to the recent IGN preview of Shadowrun (GS didn't like link), voice chat for the entire team and multiplayer matchmaking are limited to Gold subscribers (Silver subscribers only get voice chat with a friend). It is notable that we already have an effective program that mimics many of the services that Microsoft proposes to charge us for (Xfire), and programs such as Ventrilo, as well as the "radios" currently in many games, offer much more robust support for voice communication than Live does. In return for our payment, we get the "privilege" to play with our friends on the Xbox 360, a privilege that according to IGN has led to certain measures being taken to cripple the precision of the ****c mouse and keyboard controls of the PC, in order to bring PC gamers down to the level of Xbox 360 gamers. Also worrying is the system of micropayments that Microsoft has put into place over the Live Marketplace. There have been several reported instances of developers approaching Microsoft with requests to put free content (such as new maps) for their games on the Live Marketplace, only to be told that they are required to charge for it in order to maintain the perception of the value of other marketplace items. PC gamers have been receiving this type of content for free for nearly 15 years now (as well as content made by other users and the mod community), and we see no reason that we should start paying Microsoft for it.

 

bloodychimp

LOL man, its about time you stop beliving evrything you read

It seems feasible if they pay enough money to the developers or publishers. And anyway, do you run a gaming mag or website? Do you work in the PC gaming industry? Do you interview people in the gaming industry on a regular basis? If you answered all of the above questions 'no', chances are GI knows more about what is going on in the industry than you do.

And its about time for you to learn to spell, but that's beside the point. 

lol, i dont have that good a defence in the matter blody. but i have been in computer gaming as a end user for many years. i have also been on the net a long time. and i have read so many utopic articles about games and gaming that i have developed a little sound skeptisism towards news that threaten to revelusionize the gaming industry both on and offline. that Microsoft in its days managed to snatch the operating system monopoly for the pc is a feture that i have a very hard time beleving that they can repeet with taking controll of ALL online gaming over the internet. that microsoft has this as a wish, im sure they do, witch company wouldnt have, and that they maybe has made internam memos about it, quite possible. but what i dont see possible is that they can take this controll over the uncontrollable that internet are. as someone pointed out in this tread above, there will allways be the third party and all the independant companys around. so unless Microsoft start to buy up ALL the companys that produse, poblish and maintain games online as soon as this companys are getting formed. microsoft will never have FULL controll. that is of course, and should be obvious to all, a compleate utopia. of course another way for Microsoft to go is to buy all the online providers globaly lol. no sir, i stick to my comon sence in the matter we here discuss and continue to not being raged by some "wise" article somewere. besides, it would be very difficoult for Microsoft to legally acheve this goal world wide, even with the resorses they hold. therefor is my sugjestion that this matter is put to the rest until microsoft set their "plan" into motion, and then act the reaction accordingly. but of course, as my signature states : please feel free to disagree with me compleately and last, my spelling should not be of your consern unless 1: you are having problems with understanding what i am typing, do you ? 2 : you are one of my old school teatchers. are you ?