Always Online and Game Longevity (Off-Topic)

by Mad_Stylus, Wednesday, July 15, 2015, 22:58 (3421 days ago)

So I was watching a game review video, which made me think uncomfortably of Destiny.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmvcJuBOaQE

So yeah, I guess I wanted to discuss the Always Online thing here.

I got a lot of old games I still have plenty of love for. Typically now, I tend to splurge on one thing until I exhaust myself completely for some time. Every now and then, though, I get a nostalgic twinge, and I bring old games out of the box, dust off the console and give it another go. I don't always get the same experience I did on that first playthrough, but I love being able to go back. I got games from the PS1 era that I can still play whenever the mood strikes me.

Destiny, though? Destiny is living on a clock. Its not a short timer, mind, but eventually it'll run out. Bungie will depart from activision, who will put the franchise out behind the shed at some point. I could have a PS4 and the Destiny disc and all the DLC in fourty years, but I'll never again be able to play the game. At least with, say, Halo 2 when the servers went down I still had a campaign mode I could binge on.

I could see why a company might do this for chapters of a franchise. You make the first game, then you ensure people buy the second by taking away the capacity to play the first. What doesn't fit that logic is games that don't get sequels, or spiritual successors even or games that are the last of their franchise. Theirs no new boat to jump on, and not every gamer is able to continuously purchase games. Heck, their are portions of the US where the connection is going to be so shit, these games are practically unplayable right now.

Obviously, Destiny is a bit contentious for me right now. Not sure if I'll be getting the sequels to pass judgement on them. But if it was a great game I loved playing in, I'd like to be able to revisit this whenever I felt like. Some people have a transcendent love for some games that can never live again.

Also I really want to see Krull now, for some reason.