Always online is fraud

[Dark Jaguar]

There was a time when I didn't really see the big deal of things like Steam's online verification requirement to play Half-Life 2.  ABF, for his part, saw this as the problem it was even then.

Now, I think I more than agree with ABF, I've slid pretty far to the left and consider any game that requires some method of online DRM to be basically a scam, a "time bomb" just waiting to go off.

I BOUGHT Overwatch, and it's now dead.  They killed it and I can't even play a hacked version that uses custom servers.  It's a game they disappeared from existence, and the substitute they gave me, Overwatch 2, isn't even a feature complete version.  It's the very limited "free to play" edition with very few character choices, and entire modes missing.  They promised a single player mode, and that's been cancelled.

[A Black Falcon]

I will play always-online games.  You can't not these days if you play modern games, really, there are so many... and some are good.  I admit, I love Diablo IV.  I dropped it during season 1 and skipped season 2, but I got back in with season 3 and I've played a lot of hours of that game over the past few months.  I spent quite a bit of today playing it again and it's an amazing game with some of the best, most satisfying combat in an action-RPG.  But, it's also an always online game; for no actual reason you can't play offline.  When my internet connection slows down, the game runs very badly, and obviously at some point they'll turn off the servers and that's that.  It's just insane for something that should have had an offline mode.

Any such game isn't one you actually own, and the money spent on it should pretty much be considered a temporary subscription and not a purchase, because that's what it is.  Fanmade patches that remove the unnecessary always onlineness of a game like Diablo IV would be quite welcome, to save it from the fate that Overwatch 1 or, perhaps more appropriately, The Crew 1 have suffered...

Like, why was The Crew an always online game?  It's a mostly solo racing game.  There's absolutely no reason for it other than to block people from playing the game in the future.  Well, now it's shut down.  Sure, it's not the best game, but it did have a big world to drive around in.

Or to mention another PC game which should have had single player but became unusable because of shut-down servers, I don't think I ever actually played Darkspore before it got shut down, but I own a useless copy somewhere...

As for Overwatch 2, yeah, that's one of the most disappointing games in a while, particularly considering how great Overwatch 1 was.  Modern Blizzard is such a roller coaster, making some great games in the past 8 years or so (Starcraft Remaster is truly exceptional, and Diablo IV quite good at least in my opinion, and Diablo II Remaster also great), some in between, and some pretty bad ones (Warcraft III Reforged, Overwatch 2)...

I'm not surprised Overwatch 2's single player mode got cancelled, but it's unfortunate because it's the only thing that could possibly have saved that game.  The multiplayer sure isn't worth playing much compared to the first one, but as you say, oh wait, the first one's gone because they don't want people playing something better than their current junk anymore.

ABF, for his part, saw this as the problem it was even then.

Games removing support for an older operating system is so mean... yes, I'm still annoyed about games that initially supported Windows ME but removed it later because of Steam dropping support for it and such... now what do you need to run Steam, Windows 10?  Does it even still support 7?  Maybe?  The PC is an awful platform for game access!  Not everything has hacks to fix this kind of nonsense, after all.