One effect of linking game and real time was seen in Dark Souls on PC (at least it seems like that's what happened): the game was capped at 30fps. Once people hacked out the frame limiter their character's gear degraded at a higher rate.
In DS2 they released the PC version at 60fps, and consoles at 30. The equipment degradation was based on the number of frames a weapon's hitbox spent overlapping another model (walls, enemies, etc). They patched this pretty quick.
