First thing’s first: this is a “general Halo and Xbox Topics” forum section. As a result, I am fully able to post this here as it is protected by the “general” and “Xbox” categories. Any/all attempts to censor this post/move it to hide it are unjustified and will result in painting yourselves in a bad light. You have been warned.
You look at games like Destiny, Titanfall, and Halo 5: Guardians. What do you see? Online connectivity as a requirement to play. And while Halo 5: Guardians will have one element (campaign) that will support local/offline play, that’s one of at least four other modes that the game will have on offer. The result? In time, only the single player portion of Halo 5: Guardians will be playable. Why is this? Before I answer that, I’ll explain what always-online DRM is:
Always-online DRM is a business practice where companies distribute a piece of software that can only be used when connected to a specific service (in Halo 5: Guardians’ case, Xbox Live). This can be used for either anti-piracy purposes or to force customers to buy the latest piece of that software/required hardware to continue use of it.
Now that you know what always-online DRM is, you know what happens when a service like Xbox Live is either shut down or is temporarily unavailable. The new industry standard for gaming is this: A game will be playable until the next piece of hardware is released. If that piece of hardware supports backwards compatibility, then the next one will be the end of that game. In short, while you may be able to play Halo 5: Guardians on the 9th gen Xbox, you won’t be able to play it on the 10th gen Xbox or even the Xbox One. Doubt me? Why would Microsoft support three different Xbox consoles?
Destiny, Titanfall, Forza Horizon 2, Halo 5: Guardians, and countless other games have forced gamers to believe that always-online DRM is the future of gaming. What these people fail to realize is that it doesn’t have to be. We don’t have to buy multiple Xbox consoles just to game with friends or drag our consoles and countless other things from place-to-place to game locally and we certainly don’t have to throw away our games simply because they’ve aged.
So what can we do? Simple. We stop buying games with forced anti-consumer business practices. Stand up to these companies that believe they can do us wrong by speaking to them through their wallets. Only then can there be change.
Support online-only games? Abandon your favorite game whenever the next installment comes out? Is your Xbox 360 a dust collector now simply because it has dated hardware? Fine. This movement isn’t for you. This is for those of us who like seeing products we spend money on and enjoy last forever. Love Destiny? Love Titanfall? Love any of these other online-only games? Better enjoy them while you can because they’ll be nothing but cup holders/wasted hard drive space in a few years.
I can’t do this alone so all help is greatly appreciated. If you wish to contact me to discuss this further, please either private message me on here or Xbox Live. Naturally, my name here is my gamertag. Just remember that the "L"s in my gamertag are actually "I"s. Or, I can give you my email through a private message.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this massive wall of text. Together, we can help shape a brighter future for gamers everywhere