This was my experience. I bounced off it a few times, then finally got some of the interesting gear, then realized I had >!reconnected a player-built Zipline section in the last area of the game!<, was nearing its end, and I didn’t wanna leave the world quite yet hahah.
One of the few open-world games that I enjoyed just existing in, doing the menial busy-work. Growing attached to my carts as Norman Reedus grows attached to BB… Such a bizarre experience.
It really was a slow burn. I had to progress through 4 or 5 story missions before it really clicked for me. Probably around the time I got >!the first exoskeleton!<. The story starts to do its kojima thing and sucking you in with weird questions, and the gameplay finally starts to feel like you’re making a decision instead of just on rails.
Depending on your perspective, the sell/trade/loan aspect of physical can be a huge deal. I outlined in another comment, selling/trading games was never my thing, but it was my cousins. From my perspective, there’s marginal difference, but there IS a difference.
I would ABSOLUTELY argue that you more own a game purchased on gog, with an offline installer, than one purchased on steam. I now see the functional difference between owning a drm-free installer vs owning a physical game, but there’s also a gulf of difference between steam and gog
Just to be entirely fair. The rest of what you said is absolutely spot on.
I can see the functional difference there, with regards to sell/trade/loan. You could of course emulate the functionality, or rely on the honor system for abandon ware stuff, but that’s clunky, inefficient, not worth the energy.
I hadn’t considered the second hand aspect. Even as a kid, I was always more a “build a library” kind of person versus a “cycle my catalog” kind of person. I was considering things from an availability to play the game perspective alone. Thanks for the different perspective!
What’s the difference? In practical terms, what does this mean for me as the consumer? We don’t own the intellectual property, but may use the software as-is? From a practical, consumer standpoint that feels the same as the days of owning your software on a disc, unable to be taken as long as you have physical control over the device. I’m fine with calling this “owning” personally.
I’m absolutely willing to be wrong on this. I’m by no means an expert. Please, if I have missed something, let me know.
Witcher 3 and cp2077 definitely had what i’d consider full sex scenes. Like, you don’t have full on piv, but it’s about as close as, say, TV typically gets.
You found the point. It’s not about having it scale to the level the official servers are at. It’s about preserving it in some fashion, so that the dedicated few can still experience it. We don’t need thousands, we need a few dozen. And, if developers develop with this design philosophy - that eventually the game servers will be shut down and we have to release a hostable version at end of life, then the games can be written from the ground up with that implementation in mind.
I had spitballed an idea similar to this a few months back. Build the characters, world, and situations, and give the AI that information. Pick a few specific pieces of info the AI would have to tell you at specific times, basically to act as guide rails. Then, let the AI and the player just… Interact.
There are legitimate reasons for the devs and Sony to want your psn account linked. It’s also reasonable to not want to do so. Why not offer a compromise, like any healthy relationship, and allow, not force, account linking, with a little incentive? Where is the downside to either party?
I feel like that sentiment only applies visually. The world and story of 1, as well as the gameplay if you accepted it was more of an RPG than an action game, felt much better than 2 did, imo, it just looked like absolute shit.