Gaming

The only reason to require an Internet connection for a game is if it's primarily multiplayer.

I don't like it. I play with a Steam Deck from my bed and the Wi-Fi connection is pretty bad from there. I easily loose connection every five minutes.

That means I can't play any games that require constan online connection, which is a bummer.

Complete dealbreaker for me. You'll never actually own games with such models, as you are completely dependand on the publisher. Once they pull the plug, you can't play the game you paid for. Server probleem? Sorry, you can't play right now. Traveling? Sorry, can't play.

It is also generally bad for modding and the overall user experience. These kind of games often have DRM that don't allow for modding

How am I supposed to play an always online video game on the plane

In my opinion all games that can be played solo should have an offline mode. Personally I have an excellent internet connection but I hate having to depend on servers to be able to play the game that I bought.

The thing about always online is that the servers often crap out, especially during launch or during major patches. That just annoys the hell out of me.

I have a friend who lives in a dry cabin in Alaska. Only internet is a limited mobile hotspot. Games like Diablo 4 are pretty much off limits.

I understand that some games can really benefit from being always online, but I think it's important for games that can be played solo to have the offline option. The more choice the consumer has, the better.

I have accepted the fact that this would be the new normal since Diablo 3 and the infamous error 37. It was a problem back then when good internet is hard to come by. But at 2023, unless there's zero online elements in a particular game, I have no issue with always online requirement.

Good that we still have great titles from Nintendo eg. TotK

@Parellius I prefer games that I can play offline if I need to, but I have been a Diablo fan for over 20 years. Of course I purchased Diablo 4.

I dont like always online games, since I have had connection issues for a long time before I moved which made it almost impossible to play multiplayer games for me. And now my W-LAN card on my computer died without the option to use LAN. I am already glad that I can still access Denuvo "protected" games since those need to send some stuff to Denuvos sometimes.

@Parellius
I despise them. I only buy them if I'm going to play online with friends but I know at some point if I want to play solo I'm going to have to get a "less connected" version of them...

Now if I only need the solo experience, well...

Another issue arises now that handheld PC gaming is getting more and more popular. Those games will definitely ignore a big part of their potential customer base, and I assume suffer the consequences

it requires an always online connection even though I’m essentially playing it as a single player game.

That is awful. What are their reasons for that?

Never was a fan of the change. I grew up before internet was common place in many households. Only thing you had to worry about was if the game cartridge had too much dust lol.

I like No Man's Sky take on this, that seamlessly shifts from offline to online. I can stop/resume it without an hitch on my Steam Deck, even in multiplayer zones.

With Diablo IV, I get disconnected when there's a light breeze.

I don't like always online games.
Some years ago a friend asked me to play Diablo 3 together, so I bought it and tried it in singleplayer to get familiar with it, since that was the first time playing a Diablo game.
I got very hard lag - in a singleplayer session and lost the connection to the server several times.
It was such an awful experience that I couldn't bring myself to play it online anymore.

I hate that "Games as a Service" are preventing the longevity of games. I worry about all of the incredible stories and experiences that these games provide being very quickly lost to time.

Always online has pretty much always been a terrible idea except for where it's actually required (MMOs)

An always online requirement is just another form of DRM. If a game has DRM, I simply don't buy it.

I hate it I try to always avoid always online drm but sometimes it's really impossible, i'm gonna be honest and say that i got some issue with my steamdeck for them. (f u ubisoft btw) So if i find that a singleplayer game needs an always online drm i just don't buy it.

I think I prefer games that require being allways on-line to those with bad Denuvo implementation that kills the performance.

Nah. I don't have a reliable or constant connection. Constant online anything doesn't work.

Always online is garbage and I hate it.

definitely a turnoff for me.. years ago when I first discovered Diablo 2 on an old computer at a place I was house-sitting at, I had no internet whatsoever.. nothing
that game kept me sane in so many ways
eventually several months later I managed to leech some web access from an old construction yard or something behind the place, but that's a story for another time..

Unless it's an online multiplayer game, it's an instant Nope button for me. I generally refuse to be locked out of my singleplayer content if I lose Internet connection, your servers go down, or worse... get shut down intentionally due to licensing deals ending.

Same experience as you with D4. Fun game but the always-on requirement is a tad annoying. Not deal-breaking for me, but I have had my fair share of rubber-banding on my SteamDeck, especially with Bluetooth headphones connected. D2R worked well offline, why not have an offline mode here?

The games I play usually don't support online at all lol. So a game being only online is kinda a deal breaker for me lol.

Ironically I think GTAV did a pretty decent job of this - you can pause at any time during the single player, however I don't remember if it requires a connection to play single player mode.

Imo if a game has a single player mode, being online for it should never be a requirement.

It made me stop buying games and consoles in the first place.

You have to be online, the game has to be downloaded on the system, there will be bugs and it has to be patched.

Just let me buy a game and play it. I may sound like an old fart but I really enjoyed the days that I could go to a store, buy a game and play it immediately on my console.

Especially the fact that bugs are literally shipped like features now and you just have to accept that your game of 80-90 dollars is ridden with bugs, yeah fuck off really.

I refuse to buy always-online games. Not being able to pause is just dumb (and probably could be fixed if Blizzard would still give a damn). But not being able to mod the game is a deal-breaker for me, an ARPG that can't be modded is not worth my time.

I try to avoid games with always online as much as possible but sometimes you don't have choice. If you want to play Diablo IV there's not much else you could do. But at least Diablo has some form of multiplayer. If you have a solely single player experience with always online, it's just bullshit. The DRM is only punishing players that pay for the game. If you insist to implement this kind of DRM then please go ahead but then you also have to run the servers forever. If you don't then why should I buy your game?

It has no place in single player games and turns me off from playing them. There's no real reason they exist other than removing the ability to use cheats (which should be allowed in single players games imo) to obtain items or boosts that are only available on their cash shop. It also ties in to the Game As a Service model which i've come to detest; usually because they have a constant stream of updates that tries to monopolize your free time, whereas i am the kind of player that can say "ok this is done".

Games that offer multiplayer in addition to single player, such as D4, should allow you to have a single player save that's offline, can be paused and anything goes.

Personally it's never effected me but it feels like a really dumb decision made by ignorant suits. The fact that pirates get a better product than paying customers is pretty sad.

Very bad idea and I don't understand why it is becoming the norm. Let's say you want to play again Diablo 4 in a few years (probably because you will be taking care of your kid) but all the player base has disappeared. If Blizzard cuts the servers to save some money, you will not be able to play the game on an official instance, even if it is only single player. Let's say the servers won't shut down down, another issue remains. Users who want to play in public areas or when travelling won't be able to launch the game (rip steam deck users).

I don't buy always online games. Period.

I probably hate it less than most people but it doesn't excuse bad design. Warframe, for instance, requires you to always be online - but if your instance is set to Solo, you can pause the game.

If a game has a single player mode without features that require internet, and isn't accessible without wifi, thats just lazy design imo.

Always a bit of a turn off for me. Ross (guy that did Gordon's mind and game dungeon) has a pretty good series of videos about why online only games are bad because they can be killed. He really hates the idea of killing games, and I agree with him.

Not only can the game get killed, however, but it can be changed fundamentally in a bad way. Balance can be tweaked for the worse etc. And unlike single player games you can't revert back to a previous version.

I also hate that LAN play has been pretty much stripped from the PC game landscape. LAN parties during college were the shit.

Hate it as I have a Steam Deck so I just wouldn’t play it if it needed an online connection as I play a lot when travelling.

Happened when I was away with some mates and we tried to play FIFA which needed an initial online connection to Origin. Was infuriating trying to get it work with bad mobile connection

The always online is bad. The micro-transactions are worse. I'm tired of being told "But it's just cosmetic!" Yeah, well that used to come with the game too. "They need to be able to make more content!" Yeah, it's made over 666 million dollars. They can afford more content. "At least it's not..." That shouldn't exist either.

Games, and expansion packs. That's it. Day one MTX is insulting. "here's your game, pay to unlock more of it" should not be a thing we accept. At this point I half expect a back-slide to pay full price and then a sub to actually play the game. I can not wrap my head around why people defend it, I've stopped buying games with MTX entirely.

Diablo 2 resurrected is quite good, though. Nailed that one.

I have avoided the Hitman series because of their always online requirement. One day I loaded it up only to be told I couldn't play their single player game because their servers were down for maintenance.

I'm not paying $60 for a single player game that I won't be able to play when the company has server issues.

In the case of Diablo IV, I really think it needs to do more to earn its always online status. I’m hoping that future updates and things will bring more MMO-like features as I think it would be a perfect fit