News
Online Required to Play Offline
Cordova, TN; November 9, in the year of our Lord 2015--Family
Friendly Gaming, the industry leader in covering the family
friendly video games is hopping mad at the control freak video
game companies who continue to make the entire industry worse
with bad decisions. Why is an online account needed to play a
game offline? There is no logical reason. Yet some companies are
demanding an online account, and then an extra paid membership
just to play a game offline. What games am I talking about? I
will answer that in the next paragraph. Right now I want these
companies to correct their mistakes and keep offline modes pure
and separate from online modes. This kind of bait and switch is
why so many people dislike the video game industry. This kind of
corruption is why so many people refuse to buy video games.
I recently made an online purchase of Plants vs Zombies Garden
Warfare. I thought it might be interesting to review this game.
Sure I expected it to fail on our review scale. I did not expect
the game would not work. After installing the game, Teen Gamer
and Kid Gamer tried to play it in local multiplayer only. They
were denied thanks to Electronic Arts (EA) draconian design. To
play Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare offline you need to
connect the game and the system to EA’s servers, and you must
pay for a Playstation Plus membership. WHAT?!? We refuse to pay
Sony any money for online features. We keep online off, and only
want to play Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare completely offline
and locally. EA denies us that. After looking around the case we
finally saw some small print that denoted this disgusting
design. Really EA? I hope they correct this bone headed decision
in Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2. I also hope this kind of
deceptive, immoral, and unethical business decision is not make
in Star Wars Battlefront.
A step down from Electronic Arts repugnant design is Lego
Dimensions. In order to play Lego Dimensions your game, and your
system needs to connect to the Warner Bros server. Why? Family
Friendly Gaming has asked WB Games that question for months.
They are not capable of providing a response. Since they
continue to dodge the question months later, we are left to our
own opinions on the topic. I believe they are doing it because
they see your game, and your system as their property. You paid
them good money for the game, but they believe it still belongs
to them. If they decide to revoke your access to your own game,
they can easily do it on the server. Pretty scummy huh? See why
we point out these companies are corrupt, unethical, and
immoral? This is one of the reasons Family Friendly Gaming has
been very slow to review Lego Dimensions. We are extremely
unhappy with their business practices. We see no reason to drain
the severely limited Internet bandwidth resources because a
company wants to be such a control freak.
I call upon these companies to correct these mistakes as soon as
possible. Consumers need to stand up for their rights, and tell
these companies they lose a sale because of their anti-consumer
policies. Together we can effect change in the video game
industry. We can make it a better industry for families. One
person can make a change by shining a light on the corruption.
God bless,
Paul Bury
Family Friendly Gaming