I have a question about the community games. I've enjoyed many of the demos (Word Soup and Weapon of Choice being the best), and I decided to purchase Weapon of Choice. My Xbox 360 is not connected to the internet all of the time, and when playing community games (both full versions and demos) I receive a message informing me that I must actually be on Xbox Live to play the game.

Is this a bug? Or is this a "security feature" of the Xbox community games? Not everyone has thier Xboxes online all of the time, and this will be a problem for a number of gamers who want to purchase and use community games.

If anyone has any information on this, please let me know.

Thanks.

Community games must honor the parental and account settings since they count as 'unrated' games. Therefor you must be connected to play them. So its not a bug or security related. Its just how it must be to operate outside the formal ratings systems apparantly.

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ZMan

XNA Game Studio MVP
http://www.thezbuffer.com

To show support for community games, I went ahead and purchased two games and downloaded them.  I had a chance to briefly play them when I purchased them, so I know that they worked.  Well last night my ISP took my Internet connection down for maintenance (not a big deal).  When I went to play them during my Live blackout period, when I tried to run them I got a message that said that I had to be logged into Live to play.  This happened to both community games.  I thought that there may be something with the new dashboard update so I tried a couple of the XBLA games that I own and they ran just fine.  Does anyone know why there's this requirement for community games?  One would think that the branding of a game to a serial number and user ID would be basically the same as an XBLA title.

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David

The XNA team won't give out specifics, but have said that the requirement plays into how they test your account to make sure you are allowed to play the games. Given the unrated nature, the team has to be very careful that children who are prohibited from seeing this content are not able to see it. It's unfortunate, but it doesn't seem likely to change any time soon.

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twitter.com/nickgravelyn

 The ZManiac wrote:

Community games must honor the parental and account settings since they count as 'unrated' games. Therefor you must be connected to play them. So its not a bug or security related. Its just how it must be to operate outside the formal ratings systems apparantly.

Even if your not using parental controls on your 360 you still need to be connected to XBL to play?

I didn't think there was an option to filter out specific community games by peer reviewed rating!?! It's either yes or no to all. If you have your parental controls turned on and user generated content is disabled why would it need to connect to Live to retrieve a rating?

You are correct that you can't filter the CG, they are all considered unrated. But this means that any parental and content rules must be honored. From what the XNA team have said they need a connection to check that... however I agree that most of this would appear to be stored locally - maybe they are checking the Live login...

Here is the official replies from the Microsoft guys in the XNA developer forums.

http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/19178/101196.aspx#101196
and
http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/19178/101223.aspx#101223 (same thread just a reply further down)

Bottom line is that its not something they plan to change.

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ZMan

XNA Game Studio MVP
http://www.thezbuffer.com

This is very stupid. I dont have an extra lan cable for my xbox so I allways have to switch, even for offline play...

Damn you, Microsoft. How dare you do this again? You take two steps forward with the NXE but then one step back by doing stupid stuff like this. I'm tired of it.

I purchased Weapon of Choice yesterday because I thought the game demo was awesome and plus I wanted to support a "community" developer. But I lent my  ethernet cable to a friend and tried to play the game and it would not let me!

So, I will say this now: I WILL NOT PURCHASE ANY MORE COMMUNITY GAMES AS LONG AS THIS RESTRICTION EXISTS. Is this understood, Microsoft? I will not jump through hoops to play MY games that I purchased.

Did they at least tell us about the restriction before we bought the content?  Prominently?

Otherwise they're changing the rules of use after the transaction took place, and that's illegal.  That's why sporting venues can't print disclaimers on the backs of tickets, because by the time you read the ticket yuo already paid for it.

Maybe its illegal, maybe its not... unless you are a lawyer you are making assumptions. If it is illegal and it bothers you enough then posting in here isn't going to help at all. If you are correct in your assumption you should have no problem finding a lawyer to take your case.

If it bothers you that much then feel free to call for a refund and/or stop buying games.

I agree with you that its annoying but right now thats the way it is.

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ZMan

XNA Game Studio MVP
http://www.thezbuffer.com

This connected to Live requirement is bogus.  They just want the ability to track when, and how much you play them.  They also want the instant and ever controlled ability to delete the content you paid for if they so choose.

Pity that Community Games is an effort that is worth supporting but damaged by this flawed implementation shrouded in lies from Microsoft.

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Just another customer that has been lied to and stolen from since purchasing the 360, it's peripherals, and software for it.

Just as I thought, the rating thing is a steaming pile of crud.  I was able to download a bunch of normal game demos and videos from the following categories and play them just fine disconnected from live with my network cable unplugged

RP (Rating Pending - Mature)
M (Mature) 17+

That shoots the because it is unrated or mature out the window.  What is the next lie Microsoft?

I submit again that the reason they do this is so they can track usage of the Community Games, and maintain the control and options to disable and/or delete even your purchased content.

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Just another customer that has been lied to and stolen from since purchasing the 360, it's peripherals, and software for it.

I think you might be right, I don't think that parental control is the real reason for the Live connection. It simply doesn't make sense. Maybe they use the information gathered to create their Community Games favorite lists, the games which are played most show up in the marketplace. Cause daily/weekly play time would be a pretty good indicator for game quality.

Also, you can put parent controls on your xbox from making new accounts, and limiting things like user generated content. It is funny when I tried playing these games with an accout that had restrictions, they didn't let me. It gave me a message when I tried to play easy golf:

"Your account can not access user generated content."

So with my child account, I can't play these games anyways! So why in the *** can you say we have to be online tp play? As someone already stated, I feel it is to moniter how popular these games are. If they should support them, etc, etc.

It really pisses me off, as I sometimes have to bring my modem downstairs to play on xbox live. (Rooms are far apart, wireless barely gets a signal.)

Microsoft, all you are doing is crushing your own program. You want to "help" these independent developers. Well let me just say that the community games, are going to suffer for this. (Which isn't fair, but it is the truth.)

Yep, and those same rules about user content, and ratings are enforced offline.  Go ahead and set a rule for an account to block M content.  Try to play that M content online or offline with that account.  Blocked.
Microsoft the Community Games are worthless till we can be sure the content we pay for can be used without your service.

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Just another customer that has been lied to and stolen from since purchasing the 360, it's peripherals, and software for it.

I would have liked to see MS be more proactive in disclosing this requirement for playing CG's.  Obviously a very big issue for many people.  With full disclosure, each person could then make an informed decision for themselves.

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Perses: Titan God of Man-Made Destruction

Live to Game, Game to Live

 Shake N Baco wrote:

Also, you can put parent controls on your xbox from making new accounts, and limiting things like user generated content. It is funny when I tried playing these games with an accout that had restrictions, they didn't let me. It gave me a message when I tried to play easy golf:

"Your account can not access user generated content."

So with my child account, I can't play these games anyways! So why in the *** can you say we have to be online tp play? As someone already stated, I feel it is to moniter how popular these games are. If they should support them, etc, etc.

It really pisses me off, as I sometimes have to bring my modem downstairs to play on xbox live. (Rooms are far apart, wireless barely gets a signal.)

Microsoft, all you are doing is crushing your own program. You want to "help" these independent developers. Well let me just say that the community games, are going to suffer for this. (Which isn't fair, but it is the truth.)

I have a child account, and I was able to play the Community Games I downloaded. I had to go and disable all the parental settings that had been reset by the NXE update, but I was able to play these games just fine. 

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Zack Nelson (zNelson24) on the Internet

 zNelson24 wrote:

 Shake N Baco wrote:

Also, you can put parent controls on your xbox from making new accounts, and limiting things like user generated content. It is funny when I tried playing these games with an accout that had restrictions, they didn't let me. It gave me a message when I tried to play easy golf:

"Your account can not access user generated content."

So with my child account, I can't play these games anyways! So why in the *** can you say we have to be online tp play? As someone already stated, I feel it is to moniter how popular these games are. If they should support them, etc, etc.

It really pisses me off, as I sometimes have to bring my modem downstairs to play on xbox live. (Rooms are far apart, wireless barely gets a signal.)

Microsoft, all you are doing is crushing your own program. You want to "help" these independent developers. Well let me just say that the community games, are going to suffer for this. (Which isn't fair, but it is the truth.)

I have a child account, and I was able to play the Community Games I downloaded. I had to go and disable all the parental settings that had been reset by the NXE update, but I was able to play these games just fine. 

You have just further proven our point.  With the controls in place currently the system works.  You state you had to go in as the adult authority with the passcodes you used to set up parental settings and choose to disable them.  Exactly.  The parental controls worked, the only way you could play was to disable them using your passcode.

Those same settings and control work just fine offline for RP (Rating Pending - Mature) and M (Mature) 17+ regular content.  Online and offline if the settings are enabled, that content can not be accessed on that 360.  The only way to enable access that content is the Parental Unit must go in, use their passcode, and choose to disable those settings.

The crux of the matter if those settings work, why this additional restriction, and why were we lied to?

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Just another customer that has been lied to and stolen from since purchasing the 360, it's peripherals, and software for it.

 Name1963 wrote:

The crux of the matter if those settings work, why this additional restriction, and why were we lied to?

The XNA team has already told us (in the thread linked above, I believe) that they needed LIVE for some part of their tests and that they won't be getting technical as to why. Rest assured if they didn't have to do it, they wouldn't. Why would they waste time and effort implementing something if they didn't need to?

As for being lied to, while they may not have been forthcoming in telling you that you have to be online, they never said you could play them offline. You made that assumption.

Again, if you don't like it, don't play the games. If you bought the games and are upset, call Microsoft and I'm sure they will refund your money. This isn't going to change anytime soon.

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twitter.com/nickgravelyn

 SimReality wrote:

 Name1963 wrote:

The crux of the matter if those settings work, why this additional restriction, and why were we lied to?

The XNA team has already told us (in the thread linked above, I believe) that they needed LIVE for some part of their tests and that they won't be getting technical as to why. Rest assured if they didn't have to do it, they wouldn't. Why would they waste time and effort implementing something if they didn't need to?

As for being lied to, while they may not have been forthcoming in telling you that you have to be online, they never said you could play them offline. You made that assumption.

Again, if you don't like it, don't play the games. If you bought the games and are upset, call Microsoft and I'm sure they will refund your money. This isn't going to change anytime soon.

Both items in the linked thread state the reason being to protect from user created content and ensure the parental controls are enforced.  This has been proven to be false.  Nothing in that link said they needed the connection for testing.

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Just another customer that has been lied to and stolen from since purchasing the 360, it's peripherals, and software for it.

 Name1963 wrote:

 SimReality wrote:

 Name1963 wrote:

The crux of the matter if those settings work, why this additional restriction, and why were we lied to?

The XNA team has already told us (in the thread linked above, I believe) that they needed LIVE for some part of their tests and that they won't be getting technical as to why. Rest assured if they didn't have to do it, they wouldn't. Why would they waste time and effort implementing something if they didn't need to?

As for being lied to, while they may not have been forthcoming in telling you that you have to be online, they never said you could play them offline. You made that assumption.

Again, if you don't like it, don't play the games. If you bought the games and are upset, call Microsoft and I'm sure they will refund your money. This isn't going to change anytime soon.

Both items in the linked thread state the reason being to protect from user created content and ensure the parental controls are enforced.  This has been proven to be false.  Nothing in that link said they needed the connection for testing.

Edit time ran out.

Both items in the linked thread state the reason being to protect from user created content and ensure the parental controls are enforced.  This has been proven to be false.  If the restriction was needed for Parental Controls it would be needed for all unrated, M Rated, and User Created content.  Games that allow users to create content within the game do not have that content disabled offline unless the Parental Controls disable it (both on and offline).  The very fact that such user created content works offline (or not depending on setting) in those cases does even more to disprove the claim of Parental Control enforcement.  Nothing in that link said they needed the connection for testing.

As to why they would waste time and effort to do it.  I have already given a very good reasons, marketing data, and control to disable/delete the content if they so choose, even if you paid for it.  As an example, they could decide GameX is offensive to GroupY and delete that game and disable all copies.  They might decide GameZ is really worth more than the 200 or 400 MSP it sold for, so they move it to Marketplace and disable all the copies sold via CG.  I admit these are 2 extreme examples, but they are potential uses for this restrictive DRM.  Further, they are likely reasons that were considered and used as an argument for this DRM since the Parental Control issue has been proven false.

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Just another customer that has been lied to and stolen from since purchasing the 360, it's peripherals, and software for it.

You didn't prove anything to be false. You proved that the system has some local parental controls. That was never in dispute. From the second link above:

Because we don't control what users can create, we have to be extra-careful that people who are restricted from viewing this kind of content cannot see it. Requiring a LIVE sign-in ensures that the protection offered by parental controls is enforced to the extent of our ability. We wanted very much to enable offline play, but there was no way around this. I'm afraid I can't provide any more detail than that.

As he said, they have to be extra careful (i.e. add more protection than the normal parental controls) because of the nature of user generated content. He also said they wanted to enable offline play, so it should be pretty clear that this restriction wasn't just slapped on for no good reason.

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twitter.com/nickgravelyn

Just saw your full response (maybe next time hold off on posting until you've typed the whole thing up).

You are free to doubt them. Just as much as I trust that they aren't trying to sabotage their own system. Simple fact is that no amount of forum arguments are going to change anything. We (developers) questioned them on it as you can see and they were very clear things would not be changing any time soon. So as stated above your options are to either deal with the restriction or don't buy the games.

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twitter.com/nickgravelyn

 SimReality wrote:

Just saw your full response (maybe next time hold off on posting until you've typed the whole thing up).

You are free to doubt them. Just as much as I trust that they aren't trying to sabotage their own system. Simple fact is that no amount of forum arguments are going to change anything. We (developers) questioned them on it as you can see and they were very clear things would not be changing any time soon. So as stated above your options are to either deal with the restriction or don't buy the games.

Yeah, I got carried away on the edit.  Thoughts kept pouring out when it was just a minor change at first. 

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Just another customer that has been lied to and stolen from since purchasing the 360, it's peripherals, and software for it.

This restriction is not noted as any part of the download or purchase process.  Quite the contrary, clicking the Usage Restriction button gives the same information as XBLA and XBLO (Originals).

The item you are trying to download is subject to usage restrictions. You can use this item on the first Xbox 360 console you downloaded it to. Access to this item will also be granted to all users on this first console. If you transfer the item using a memory unit or other storage device, you will also be able to use it on other Xbox 360 consoles, but you'll need to sign in to Xbox LIVE with you Xbox LIVE account on that console before accessing the item.

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Just another customer that has been lied to and stolen from since purchasing the 360, it's peripherals, and software for it.

To those who think that they should be warned - I agree this is fair enough. Jim has made a connect issue (this is the official way to send feedback to the XNA/Community Games team. If you have a live login you can make a connect account and vote on the issue:  https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=386016&SiteID=226&wa=wsignin1.0

To those who suspect some conspiracy - there is none. The links I provided above are the official public response, its all to do with ensuring that only the people who are allowed to see it what is 100% community content can see it. The requirement to be online won't be changing any time soon. I'm sorry that this means some of you cannot play how you like to but that how it is.

Feel free to continue the debate if you want but its not going to make any difference, sorry.

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ZMan

XNA Game Studio MVP
http://www.thezbuffer.com

 The ZManiac wrote:

To those who think that they should be warned - I agree this is fair enough. Jim has made a connect issue (this is the official way to send feedback to the XNA/Community Games team. If you have a live login you can make a connect account and vote on the issue:  https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=386016&SiteID=226&wa=wsignin1.0

To those who suspect some conspiracy - there is none. The links I provided above are the official public response, its all to do with ensuring that only the people who are allowed to see it what is 100% community content can see it. The requirement to be online won't be changing any time soon. I'm sorry that this means some of you cannot play how you like to but that how it is.

Feel free to continue the debate if you want but its not going to make any difference, sorry.

Thank you for the link to the connect issue.  After a minor problem getting registered (email had =3D every place the link should had = {may have been my ISP filters though}) got registered and voted that as a Very Important issue.

There is still the concern of what happens to gamers who feel ripped off by this restrive DRM between now and whenever any correction is made.  After all there currently is no warning.  Even worse, the few people who might click over to see the Usage Restriction text are given the same exact text as standard DLC, XBLA, XBLO games.  That text makes it clear the content should work offline unless the user is on a console other than the purchasing console.  So the customer is not only not getting a warning, they are actively misled by that text.

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Just another customer that has been lied to and stolen from since purchasing the 360, it's peripherals, and software for it.

The only thing I can suggest is that people who feel ripped off call Xbox live support and ask for a refund and specify this as the reason. I'm sure if enough people are in this situation then the message will get to the people who matter. We have also sent the message internally to the XNA team, though that doesn't guarentee any speedier response.

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ZMan

XNA Game Studio MVP
http://www.thezbuffer.com

 Name1963 wrote:

I submit again that the reason they do this is so they can .... maintain the control and options to disable and/or delete even your purchased content.

this makes sense to me. if it happened that a community game was shown to infringe on the copyright of some game by some developer (say, for example, someone made a tetris clone and CALLED it tetris - of course it would have to pass the community rating system so it wouldn't be anything this obvious) then microsoft would need the ability to immediately turn off all copies of that game or else they could be sued. you might look at this measure as protecting the indie developer as they most likely wouldn't be able to pay any kind of court settlement.

 The ZManiac wrote:

The only thing I can suggest is that people who feel ripped off call Xbox live support and ask for a refund and specify this as the reason. I'm sure if enough people are in this situation then the message will get to the people who matter. We have also sent the message internally to the XNA team, though that doesn't guarentee any speedier response.

So in a couple of years' time we can expect to, maybe, be able to play community games offline. Hahahahahaha.

As someone else has said, MS are doing it again. It's just another example of how they completely disregard their customers and try to force us into just accepting their ridiculous and restrictive practices. I spent nearly two years without access to my downloaded content when I was offline. They finally sorted out a solution and now I find I'm facing the same situation with community games.

Well, I downloaded one of the games to try it before I found this out. Looks like it will be my last.

Way to go MS.

You know, every time I start to think they know what they are doing they go and prove me wrong.

Rest assured, I will be telling everyone I know not to download any community games until this pointless restriction is lifted.

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Stercus accidit