nightcraw1er.488: If a game is meant to be online and is designed that way with only a minimal lip service offline but, then it’s the same issue as drm, when the internet goes down or the servers don’t exist, you no longer have it. Sure we can argue degree, me I would put tournament in the category again, but obviously that is debatable.
Gersen: But how do you determine that ? (i.e. what is "minimal" or not)
From that I saw Axis & Allies can be played offline against the AI, so it is not really any different from most other RTS, strategy, card games, etc... sold here. Neverwinter was originally created to be played in multiplayer with a player being the game master, so should it be on this list because it was originally designed to be "online" ?
You have peoples who will tell you that the main interest of Diablo and its sequels is to be played in MP, but on the other side others who only played the SP part and are perfectly happy with it, so who is right ?
Or do you consider the length of the SP part ?
In that case a game like Modern Warfare where the single player campaign is 2-4 hours long (but potentially hundreds hours if you play online) would it mean that if it was ever sold here it would appear on this list as having DRM even though the story campaign is fully offline ? But then we have fully SP games being sold here that can be completed in less than an hour so what to do with them ?
IMO It's already complicated enough to try (and fail) to have a single definition of DRM-free, if you start putting into the DRM category every games where the multiplayer part might be longer than the single player part it will only manage to confuse peoples even more.
nightcraw1er.488: Gwent definately should be of course.
Gersen: Well if you want to be totally correct then Gwent shouldn't be on this list either because, unless it has changed recently, there is nothing "
single player" about it. Apart from maybe the basic tutorial there is nothing in this game that you can "play" on you own, everything requires other players.
But by that logic, nothing can be stated by definition as DRM. If you start saying well, this game has 2 minutes which you can play offline, or this one has a character builder, or this one you can use the menu then the reverse is true. My definition is quite simple, I want 100% content under 100% my control 100% of the time. Anything short of that is managing my rights to a product. You can call it drm,or online gating, or online only, or activations, or disc checks, or code wheels or whatever. Your example of gwent is nonsense. One of the titles I have played most on iPad (I know, I didn’t want it, but hey the ownership fight is long lost as is privacy etc) is ascension, which is a card game competitive for 2-4 players or against AI. You can play it offline or online. Does Gwent provide even this basic level of single player, no. If Gwent servers shut down you have nothing. If ascension servers shut down, I can still play hot seat and against AI. Gwent is designed to eventually die when it’s cash has been made, built in planned obsolescence.
Not saying there is t a place for these types of things, but it hardly fits the bill for this place.
nightcraw1er.488: so long as something is available offline, maybe an MMO with the character creation as offline, would that be ok?
deesklo: The only variant of MMO that would be ok is a distribution including the server code, so people who bought it could set up the full game themselves.
That may well be an answer. But do companies want to do that? Online is about data capture and monopolisation. So no incentive for companies. Not sure how much incentive for users either, once the player base has gone, then is it worth it at the end of the day anyways. Maybe for some of them.