With the outage over Christmas of both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network (both pretty much restored, though it took Sony much longer to recover) many console gamers were unable to play.
Screen captures of the official status from both networks this morning
Beyond online gaming even those attempting to play their own local games were often hampered by the inability of the DRM system to work, preventing the game from loading. Oh, DRM…who needs it? Not the person playing old games that don't use it!
While the term "retro gaming" will likely evoke images of an Atari 2600 or NES, it is retro gaming of the PC persuasion to which we direct our attention now. The website known as Good Old Games (GOG.com) sells many classic titles from distant and not so distant past, and everything sold is DRM free. Install, run; no internet connection required (after you use the internet to actually download the game, that is).
The games are inexpensive as well, but get so much more so during the frequent sales the site promotes. One such sale is going on now, where various Square Enix-owned titles are 75% off, which puts them at $1.49 to $2.49 each. Take that, modern console gaming!
Dragon Age: Inquistion
Dragon Age: Inquistion
“Good Old Games” is doing a
“Good Old Games” is doing a bit of false advertising in their name. They have “Daikatana” in their collection!
That is why it is best to
That is why it is best to avoid buying games that rely on any online DRM. What happens when the servers dies. With most consoles, and most PC games, you will likely not be able to play the games in the future when those DRM servers are no longer around.
While you can crack the games to get rid of the DRM, you then have to worry about running untrusted code all while paying money to do so.
Here is my short note tto say
Here is my short note tto say THANKS for the news update here,
that was precisely what I was on the lookout for!
Feeel frse to sur to mmy blog ppost http://www.prehackedgames.pw
I hate DRM, it’s especially
I hate DRM, it’s especially annoying that it doesn’t actually work. So far the most successful anti pirate tactic has been from “Video Game Tycoon” where they bombed the pirate sites with a secretly modified version of the game, where no mater how hard you tried all your software was pirated in game and you went outa business. That was funny, they did make a point and it most people who want it bought it.
The most annoying part of this cloud world is when you put in a hard pressed optical disk version of a game and first thing it does is install u-play or whatever, what the fuck is the point of a disk?
LOVE YOU G.O.G. drm free as it should be, the best way to stop stealing is easier access. Those who will steal it anyways will steal it anyways, the more people who play the better, period.
I already have the same
I already have the same problem with GOG that I have had for ages with Steam. There’s nothing ever on sale that I don’t have (1,800+ on Steam; 600+ on GOG).
I hope that GOG will maintain the playability of their games way into the future (they already have problems with a lot of them just being broken on modern operating systems). I kind of look at my GOG games as “what I’m going to play if I’m ever destitute and nearly homeless and have a limping-along computer with no internet” vault. Stuff that will keep me going through the darkest of times.
There will be blood banks
There will be blood banks geared for the down and out gamers, they will offer temporary keys for blood. Or for those that want longer lasting keys, there will always be the drug trial/guinea pig medical stay in, with plenty of free consoles loaded with the latest, play while your hair falls out, or you grow a third ear on your right Knee cap.
For the really down and out there will be the occasional abandoned property that still has the solar cells on the roof, and an Atari 2600 hidden under the floor boards, that ET game cartage, if it has not been pawned for a temporary key, will still offer the gaming junkies their fix.
Looks like even the OSs will be going that way, after some time, with hardware locked into an always draining closed ecosystem business model, better hoard those old gaming systems, and cartridges, or get some of those cracks, to keep the gaming going when the server is down. I hear even some of those digital oscilloscopes have some Easter egg, games loaded in with the code, and there are some old mainframe terminals like the Burroughs TD 830, that can have space invaders programmed in via downloaded streams of ASCII with the right escape codes, that Motorola 6800 microprocessor was used in many devices, and that space invaders was fun with all its ASCII graphics.