That's part of the issue, it shouldn't be a service to begin with, it's only a service because it has artificially been made into one.

Online play has only became a "service" because they striped all LAN or "free" (free as in free to connect to any server you want) Internet online play from their games
(Obviously I am not talking about MMOs or other online only games).

There is a big difference between offering an extra service and removing an existing feature and then later try to monetize it as a service.

It's like earlier when the same Ubi tried to publicizes UPlay always on DRM as an extra "service" they were offering. (Knowing them I wouldn't be surprised at all if UPlay passport would soon be linked to said DRM forcing second hand buyers to pay 10$ to be able to play the game at all).

Perhaps. The general public embrace that kind of online functionality though.

They embrace it or accept it? One means they actively prefer it, the other just means they don't have much of a choice if they want to keep playing games.

Well if we're talking games and movies I think they definitely embrace it. Steam and Netflix are proof of that. The "common gamer" loves Steam functionality and is perfectly willing to trade things in for it like resale and a sense of ownership.

I'm willing to grant that (and I even prefer the Netflix model just because it's an overall better economic model for me; as it is with most folks I suspect).

Do you think the common gamer prefers lack of LAN play and inability to host 3rd party servers, though? Because that's the crux of where this "Oh this is costing us poor publishers soooo much money!" argument is coming from.

EDIT: I should say if Steam worked like Netflix and I really got access to pretty much every game for 25 bucks a month or something, I'd be all over it.

From game quality point of view, it is very worrying though. Without second-hand game sales or even from making money of them, there's one less incentive for game developers and publishers to develop and publish "keepers", ie. games so good that you simply don't want to sell it to anyone else. Games that have lots of replay value. Take for example Civilization games.

Now it makes more sense for them to make short games that you get bored of very quickly, and want to buy another game soon. Adding replay value for their games would be negative for their income. Is this really where you wish the game market to be heading?

I can only try to fathom the outrage if movies got a similar system, ie. you buy a full price DVD or Blueray movie, but have to download half of it from the net to your DVD player, and if you wanted to play the movie in your friend's home or even give/sell it to him, he wouldn't be able to do it, or would have to pay for it.

If I'm ripped off my rights to sell my old games (or movies) away, at least I'd expect to see this as a reduced price. This goes also to e.g. Steam games, which can't be sold either. I'm fine with e.g. GoG game prices. :)

Sadly the general public tends to embrace anything as long as it doesn't explode in their face or others keep repeating them one thousand time that they shouldn't (Heck if we are forced to have huge safety warning on paper shredder it's because a sizable chuck of the general public would otherwise embrace the idea of putting their fingers (or worse) into it.) , but it's not a reason for those who don't like it to accept it.

I would guess that the general public doesn't care much about LAN because most of them play online. That said people definitely want offline functionality, the ire about Ubisoft's DRM proves that. Also people hate install limits, just because it makes them feel limited.

Activating online once and tying your game to an account though... people don't care about that.

I don't mind binding games to myself as the purchaser (a'la GoG). But I do actually mind activating even once.

I format about every 6 months and I'm constantly upgrading hardware or trading hardware with other PCs in the house. ANYTHING that binds software to a device or number of installs or when I can play, etc. Is not something I can tolerate. I want to buy it, get it inside my house and then do whatever I want to with it. (one machine at a time, I would even agree I need to buy it twice to use it on more than one machine simultaneously). I'm right there with the devs screaming loudly that folks need to pay for their games. But restricting those that do pay is NOT in any part of the answer as far as I'm concerned.

The thing I'm seeing more and more of is the user tracking and information gathering these "services" are using. Its laughable that they feel they can TAKE information that becomes an asset to their company and to do so as a result of the consumer paying full price for a product. Even better when a game serves adds up. At this point the company gets revenue from aggregate consumer data, add revenue AND the full price game with no discount. If a company would like to approach me about paying for my services, I'd be happy to talk with them, but until then, my LAN door is closed and single player games I buy are expected to work out of the box on my PC. With publishers claiming theft is so damaging and the reason for high prices, why do they not pass on the savings to the consumer when they put in measures that prevent the theft? If the answer is that those savings went into the protection measure, then we have a problem :/

(/end soapbox)