PixlBit

Hate to burst your bubble, but the rumor making its rounds, which is supported by Microsoft's own marketing double-speak, is that the "Family Plan" that you're lamenting wasn't anything more than the ability for gamers to allow up to 9 other gamers who have been on their friends list for at least 30 days to access to a 60-minute timed demo of any of their games. After you've reached that time limit you'd be unable to continue until you purchase the game at full price.

Which makes sense. I mean, how in the world could anyone possibly believe that the same company that was essentially trying to singlehandedly kill the used games market until a few days ago was really going to allow us to share our games with 9 other people? Does anyone really believe that publishers would have allowed it when the XBox One's DRM policies were likely in place due at least in part to pressure put on Microsoft by them to help combat used games? I mean, it's not like we haven't heard from developers over the course of the generation about how much they think that the second-hand market sucks for games, so I'm not sure how anyone could have believed that they were just gonna go ahead and sacrifice up to ten potential sales per XBox One to the "Family Plan". Of course they weren't.

The thing that sucks is we'll never know for sure. It's vastly more favorable for Microsoft to just keep its mouth shut on this one at this point. After all, gamers, without really knowing much about it or how it would work, built the "Family Plan" up in their minds to be this amazing, potentially industry-changing feature, so much so the same gamers are now lamenting its loss and are accusing those of us who value our consumer rights of being luddites. So why be up front about what it was when the reality of it surely wouldn't live up to our expectations, and when Microsoft can simply sit back and watch as the tide of public opinion slowly but surely changes in their favor as people get fed up with being blamed for stiffling progress, even if that progress was just a figment of our imaginations the entire time?

Listen, we're talking about a company that claims to have ignored consumer backlash in order to see how well the DRM bullshit would go over once people got a look at its games at E3. We're talking about a company that thumbed its noses at our military service-people by telling them that they can get XBox 360s if they can't maintain a persistent internet connection. We're talking about a company that, even when it finally realized that there was more money to be had by offering consumers a product that they want instead of trying to shove one down their throats that they didn't, went out of its way to portray those of us who value our rights as consumers as luddites by making it seem like they had to cut a lot of forward-thinking features in order to give us what we want. That one came in spite of the rumor making the rounds that it's biggest feature, the "Family Plan", was nothing more than a glorified 60-minute timed demo service, which as we all know has been a feature of PS+ for awhile now without requiring users to always be connected to the internet. This is a company that when asked for reassurance that they wouldn't reverse these policies yet again at some point down the road said that they could not. This is a company that's done a lot to damage the XBox brand in recent weeks, and this reversal of policies isn't enough to fix any of it. Not for me, anyway.

Also, people need to understand that this backpeddling didn't happen because Microsoft genuinely care about what gamers have to say. That's what they want us to believe, but what really happened is that they saw the XBox One's poorer-than-expected pre-order numbers and shat themselves. If our complaining factored into their decision to drop the DRM crap at all, it was only inasmuch as it gave Microsoft a frame of reference for why those pre-order numbers were so low, and it informed what Microsoft would need to do in order to reverse their fortunes. It was a marketing move plain and simple, and I for one aint in any hurry to reward them for it. I think I'll wait until such a time as they should show that they are capable of doing the right thing because it's right, and not because it makes the most business sense.

Suffice it to say that I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

 I agree. It's refreshing to see a site review a game on its own merits these days.

I dug the hell out of Darksiders. That said, I've never finished it. I got to where you gave up and my PS3's HDD decided to take a dump, and I haven't had the desire to play through it again. Not because I didn't have fun doing it the first time, but because I really kinda resented the fact that I'd HAVE to. It's weird, sure, but that's me in a nutshell. I'm sure I'll go back and finish it someday. :P

I did just finish the PC version of Darksiders 2 though. It's a bit buggy, and a couple of times I thought that I was gonna have to start over because of that, but thankfully I was able to finish just fine. Had a blast doing it, too. :)

That's why I'm here, sir. :)

My condolences. You haz them.

I'm glad to know that you're doing okay, Ben. I was worried about you.