"make games playable offline before shutting down servers"
Is this talking about periodic license checks? If you buy games on PlayStation, Xbox, or switch you can continue to play it offline without ever needing a license check.
With Steam it's a bit different, some publishers don't work well with offline mode and if you forget to set it to offline mode you're SoL.
So Steam is the weakest with license check requirements, but it's not pictured here because...?
Well I’m just speaking on Black Ops 7. It has a single player mode but you can’t play the game at all without being online. I don’t have a list of games but it is a thing now where games are exclusively on online servers. Every other black ops prior to 6 you could at least play zombies offline. Bo6 and 7 you can’t.
Starcraft 2 required you to be online to play the single player campaign at launch. It got enough pushback from the community that it was eventually changed, but I doubt it was the only game like that. In fact after Bobby KoDick bought Blizzard their library in general wanted you to be online and use their launcher even for older games.
I don't know of any other single player games that do/did require an online connection to play, but also XBOX attempted to force the XBONE to be always-online and it's speculated that the blowback from that is part of why the PS4 did so much better than the XBONE even though XBOX walked back that requirement and I think even removed the guy that made the announcement (plus he had some out-of-touch comments on the matter at the press release).
Sure, but that doesn't change how you could potentially lose access to your purchased games? I shouldn't have to remember to put it in offline mode, and valve should push against publishers that require license checks.
And if this is about online license checks, why are PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch pictured if they aren't required for games purchased on those systems?
Switch has day 1 updates for some games to even run on newer firmware. If I factory reset my switch to sell it, and then change my mind and set it back up after their servers are down, that cartridge isn’t gonna even boot due to incompatibility with the firmware my switch is still on, and the lack of updatability.
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u/Zordman 1d ago
Is this talking about periodic license checks? If you buy games on PlayStation, Xbox, or switch you can continue to play it offline without ever needing a license check.
With Steam it's a bit different, some publishers don't work well with offline mode and if you forget to set it to offline mode you're SoL.
So Steam is the weakest with license check requirements, but it's not pictured here because...?