Ah! So it is an actual real live rumor instead of some juvenile April Fool's joke. whew
Yup, this rumor's a live one, caught in the wild a mere 5 days ago. Until official clarification from the publishers in question, it will maintain its status of "Wild, unverified and blatantly provocative"
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Yup, this rumor's a live one, caught in the wild a mere 5 days ago. Until official clarification from the publishers in question, it will maintain its status of "Wild, unverified and blatantly provocative"
Those are the best kind!
Ah! So it is an actual real live rumor instead of some juvenile April Fool's joke. whewYup, this rumor's a live one, caught in the wild a mere 5 days ago. Until official clarification from the publishers in question, it will maintain its status of "Wild, unverified and blatantly provocative"
Just wanted to make sure it's legitemate enough to get worked up about.
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Just wanted to make sure it's legitemate enough to get worked up about.Ah! So it is an actual real live rumor instead of some juvenile April Fool's joke. whewYup, this rumor's a live one, caught in the wild a mere 5 days ago. Until official clarification from the publishers in question, it will maintain its status of "Wild, unverified and blatantly provocative"
Get worked up its strongly rumored.
Get worked up its strongly rumored.Just wanted to make sure it's legitemate enough to get worked up about.Ah! So it is an actual real live rumor instead of some juvenile April Fool's joke. whewYup, this rumor's a live one, caught in the wild a mere 5 days ago. Until official clarification from the publishers in question, it will maintain its status of "Wild, unverified and blatantly provocative"
Is it in the air, like a thief in the night?
Is it taking more than its share? More than its right?
Rumors in the Air by NightRanger for those born past 1983.
Rumors in the Air by NightRanger for those born past 1983.
I prefer Four in the Morning.
EDIT: Nice Rick-Roll. Punk...lol.
No consumer knows when a price will drop, or if it will drop, or if a publisher will re-release it as a Classic/Greatest Hits game for less. And if a customer in your non-real world scenario is willing to shell out $60 for a game when he knows it'll only be $30 in two weeks, then I contend he is either a diehard gamer (a small minority) or a fool.
To use a very recent example, Mass Effect 3 was released 3 weeks ago. It retailed for $60. It is now selling used for about $40 (even less on eBay), and this is typical of most major releases.
Now, you contend that only the tiny fraction of gamers who are diehard, or the foolish would buy a game new when they know they can get it used for a steep discount within a couple of weeks. Mass Effect 3 has, globally, sold over 2 million copies so far. Again, it's been out for 3 weeks.
So 2 million people are, according to you, fools or, on rare occasion, diehards. Either way, it's clear that plenty of people are willing to pony up full price for a game even knowing that the game will see a 33% used discount within a couple of weeks. It's insane to believe that none of the people who choose to buy it used would instead buy it new if used were not an option.
I don't think you are grasping the argument. The majority of gamers are not diehard, but casual ones. Casual gamers are a profitable and valid customer demographic.
And are not at all the demographic being targeted with the ban on used game sales. The casual games market is almost entirely made up of games that are not sold in stores. Many aren't sold at all. Almost none of them ever see used sales, because very few come in physical form to begin with. They have almost no bearing on this discussion.
Why do video game publishers believe they are entitled to do an end-run around the established and court upheld first-sale doctrine?
I'm not sure what your problem is. First-sale arguably doesn't apply at all to video games, since you are purchasing a tightly-defined license, not a tangible product that you get to claim ownership of.
BY THE WAY, this is how Windows, Office, and almost all other commercially-sold professional software is marketed. Heck, you've had to authenticate Windows with Microsoft for years, and that hasn't stopped its sale or continued development at all.
And really, you contend that people are not being ethical purchasing a used item because the original manufacturer/publisher doesn't get a piece of the pie?! I know today is April Fools, but really?!
Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. By purchasing a used game, you are enjoying the fruits of someone else's labor without compensating them for it.
And please, please don't come back with a, "But used cars!" response. That was dealt with pages ago. Cars, and many other physical products with extensive used markets, are sold with an expected lifetime, and their price on the used market decreases at a predictable rate with their continued use. It doesn't matter who drives it, that car - or its parts - is going to be used until it stops working. Digital intangibles - especially licensed digital intangibles - don't work that way at all.
As for the unfair, inaccurate and aggressive accusation about my spending habits
No one made any "accusations", much less ones that are unfair, inaccurate, or aggressive. I just repeated back exactly what you told me:
I frequently buy pre-owned games for my younger siblings (by 15 years :P) and mainly that's because it's affordable...Pre-owned gives them more fun and costs me less.
You want bang for your buck - you want the best possible combination of value and quality of entertainment. Don't tell me that's not what you said. It's literally what you said. It's right there.
There's nothing wrong with that (aside from the aforementioned ethical snags of benefiting from someone's work without compensating them for it). But, similarly, there's also nothing wrong with Sony or Microsoft or anyone else wanting the most bang for their buck. So leave the juvenile name-calling on the playground.
Seems to me Sony and by extension their few defenders need a clue by 4. Oh well when they loose money on this stupidity they will change their tune. Or since it is April 1st maybe its a big joke.
You're clearly very well-informed about this issue. Your argument hits all the salient points, and I think we should all just go home.
Well, there are obviously people who will pay the asking price, roughly no matter what it is. Some have money, some are fanatics, and so on. However: There are a lot of people who would buy if the games were cheaper, but will not at the asking price. There are also people who will buy at asking price SO LONG AS THEY CAN RECOUP SOME BY SELLING THE GAME ON. There are lots of different groups in play here, and eventually, what it boils down to is how much of a profit the company needs to make on a certain game. Consider: A very significant portion of the price of the games we buy is marketing money. We're paying the company to tell us to buy the game. How much of that is reasonable? Today it's typically about a third of the cover price, as I understand it. It's a simplistic view that all the money goes to the developers, and therefore not paying full price is always theft/unethical. There are always some people that do this, and choose to ignore every other issue in favour of this.
But the worst part of this is not the price.
Having all 1984 ebooks pulled from all accounts, THAT is an issue. If I invest in a well-stocked account at a distributor, buying lots of software from them... that means they could suddenly, for any reason or no reason, choose to kill my account. The only recourse for me would be to go the legal route... which very few people can afford, and which would cost much, much more money than the account was worth in the first place.
THAT is why digital-only distribution is a bad idea. It will probably happen, even so. Eventually, people will learn why it's a bad idea.
Having all 1984 ebooks pulled from all accounts, THAT is an issue. If I invest in a well-stocked account at a distributor, buying lots of software from them... that means they could suddenly, for any reason or no reason, choose to kill my account. The only recourse for me would be to go the legal route...
Except that's not true. The public-outcry route is extremely effective, and free. The internet enables digital distribution. It also enables socially-networked PR pressure.
Let's assume, for a moment, that you have an internet connection that is 100% reliable, and that the game's publishers had servers that were equally reliable. Would you still be opposed to the idea? If so, why?I will not purchase any such game console that requires a constant internet connection for single player games.
If a competitor has a console offering good old fashioned offline play, that is the one I am buying. I hope everybody else joins me.
Microsoft, Sony: This is a crappy strategy and I'm not playing your game. Literally.
So you are going to hook this Internet connection up in every room in my house? Are you also going to give me all the bandwidth I want while still keeping the console connected? Are you going to follow me to whatever location I want to take it and install this hypothetical Internet wherever I choose? Are you going to pay for this connection for me?
All of this doesn't matter because there is also *NO* such thing as 100% reliable Internet. You might as well ask if I would still get out of bed if I could have magical fairies do all my work for me.
If I want to hook this up in the living room, I have to install a network drop or get some wi-fi for it. Then I have to fuss with all the usual network troubleshooting issues. Then what if the kids want to take it and play it in their room? Or take it down to the rec room and use it there? What about if they take it to a friend's house? It's all sounds like nothing but a big headache to me. Game consoles are not supposed to be headaches, they are supposed to be fun. This is why I would rather get an old game console and play that than buy one that I have to fuss about getting it connected.
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I think that if Sony and/or Microsoft do this, there will be a large number of gamers who simply pass on their consoles this generation. It could lead to a resurgence in PC gaming, as overly-restrictive DRM actually seems to be losing traction in that market. In fact, I'd wager that even Steam removes some of it's restrictions within the next few years.
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I will seriously think about skipping out on the new console game systems if they do this. ~shrugs~ I am all for protection of the rights of the manufaturer and designers, but there are limits. "If I spend $5, $10, $20, $30, $40, or even $60+, then the game is MINE!!! Otherwise, I have LOTS of games to play or replay for my (older) game system(s) and the PC.
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Having all 1984 ebooks pulled from all accounts, THAT is an issue. If I invest in a well-stocked account at a distributor, buying lots of software from them... that means they could suddenly, for any reason or no reason, choose to kill my account. The only recourse for me would be to go the legal route...Except that's not true. The public-outcry route is extremely effective, and free. The internet enables digital distribution. It also enables socially-networked PR pressure.
People did not get their 1984 ebooks back, AFAIK. And even if public outcry helped that time, what if it's just me? I am sorry, I don't see any public outcry happening.
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It's valuable to note that Steam does not require an internet connection to play the game. It requires a connection to download the game, receive updates, and access the social functions, but the games themselves do not in general require a connection to play, since they are stored on and accessed from your local hard drive. If the consoles did something like that, similar to what the current systems generally do, they could probably get away with it; they would still lose a lot of customers, but not enough to stop them from doing it. Anything more restrictive than that is going to be highly problematic. There are a lot of people who play console games precisely because the big PC games have for the most part abandoned those who don't want the hassle of having to deal with the internet every time they want to entertain themselves. Most people I know who play console games never connect their system to the internet, even for games that have strong internet components, except occasionally just long enough to acquire new games. If you change it to require internet access just to access the game to play it, those people will simply not bother buying the system. I suspect Diablo 3 will run into a similar problem; people may like the game, but the delivery and access systems will turn a lot of people off.
Most games even the ones downloaded from Vault or Steam are usually hacked within a few days and can be downloaded from ------ --- safely, not that you should because piracy is bad mmm-kay. All the "new" protection scheme from Microsoft and Sony will do is drive the legit used game stores out of business and increase the amount of people pirating their games causing them an even greater loss of revenue.
Microsoft and Sony should just make a deal with the used game stores for a small percentage of the game re-sales. Used game store stay in business and Microsoft and Sony still make money and the gamers can still buy cheap games, everybody wins. Microsoft and Sony however don't want to share; they want all the profits for themselves and screw every last dime they can from their games.
I think that if Sony and/or Microsoft do this, there will be a large number of gamers who simply pass on their consoles this generation.
Not if the games are good.
People did not get their 1984 ebooks back, AFAIK. And even if public outcry helped that time, what if it's just me? I am sorry, I don't see any public outcry happening.Having all 1984 ebooks pulled from all accounts, THAT is an issue. If I invest in a well-stocked account at a distributor, buying lots of software from them... that means they could suddenly, for any reason or no reason, choose to kill my account. The only recourse for me would be to go the legal route...Except that's not true. The public-outcry route is extremely effective, and free. The internet enables digital distribution. It also enables socially-networked PR pressure.
Public outcry earned them $30 apiece, spurred a corporate change in policy, and helped one student sue Amazon for $150,000. It has a pretty okay track record.
Historically, this is demonstrably not true. Mattel, Atari, Nintendo, Sega and Sony all have warranties on games published for their respective systems that apply to original purchaser. That strongly implies that it was expected that there would be secondary purchasers.
So the fact that someone clarifies their warranty so that it doesn't apply to anyone who happens to hold the game's case in their hands means that game companies are tacitly admitting that it's totally fine to sell the game as used?
Really?
Also, when a niche publisher of tangible games goes under, where else could I go to get the product but the used games market?
When publishers go under, rights are usually transferred. That would be up to whoever the current rightsholder is.
Physical media is going away, so it doesn't really surprise me that console designers are going with digital libraries. I'm okay with it. :)
I know that.
Excellent! Then I'm glad we can get whatever your weird and irrelevant peccadilloes are out of the way.
Except for the important differences between the sale of used digital media and the examples you gave. One of them is a public good recognized by the state and provided free of charge for the sake of that good, and the other is a used product that, just like pretty much every non-digital product out there, will eventually break beyond repair. If you buy a used car, you are not getting the same experience as someone who drives a new car is, to varying degrees depending upon the condition of the used vehicle - you are spending more in repairs, and can enjoy the car for less time before it fails. If you play a used copy of Bioshock, you are enjoying the exact same experience (aside from the individual choices you make during the course of gameplay) that everyone who purchased the game new is, but you're getting that experience at a (typically) huge discount.
Oh? I think we're all aware of the degradation of physical media (just like cars). The examples can also be expanded to used CD, DVD, BD, and book sales as well, not just used cars.
Again, we are talking about physical media here. Just as cars can eventually break down (we're also all aware of cars lasting many decades), so can physical media. And, while the experience of using a used vehicle depends (that's quite the "depends" you make) on the quality of the vehicle, so does the experience of a used game depend on the quality of the physical media (scratches, etc). And, again, don't overly concentrate on used vehicles. Expand it to used books, CDs, houses, etc. Anything physical object that can be purchased and then re-sold. It's all applicable.
You might also want to go into more detail about "the public good" before chirping that there are these nebulous "differences".
My previous post/statement continues to hold true: "Purchasing used products (of any sort) is certainly legitimate - and consumers do have the right to sell their property, and have the right of first sale." It really is the end of story.
As explained above, that's a pretty ignorant argument to make.
Not very well, I see. I'd be careful of throwing around the word "ignorant".
Whilst hard info is still borderline non-existent on the PlayStation 4 (apparently code-named, and maybe finally-named, the PlayStation Orbis) and the X-Box 720 (code-named Durango), there seems to be a growing consensus that Sony and Microsoft want to shoot dead the pre-owned gaming market with their new systems, regardless of what impact that has on gaming retail.
According to Kotaku, the PlayStation Orbis will require Internet activation for all of its games. This will link your game to a unique serial code. The code may actually be transferrable, but only for a fee payable directly to Sony.
It is also strongly rumoured that at least the PS4 will require an always-on Internet connection in order to work.
In other words: for the next console generation there will be uniform, perpetual DRM for all titles. There will be no preowned games market to speak of. There will probably be no grey/import market for hardware. If you're living in the USA and want an early console, tough, you'll have to wait for the native release. If you haven't any Internet access for any reason, tough, you won't be able to play games.
I suspect many console gamers will not be happy with this.
Obviously we're still 2-3 years away from these consoles launching and complaints and market research may change the console companies' minds, but this is still a startling development. Sadly, it may have been triggered by the relative passivity that has greeted PC DRM schemes in the last few years. Whilst there's been complaints about it, PC game sales have still increased dramatically in the last two years, mostly through DRM services like Steam and Origin. This may have encouraged Sony and Microsoft to take this step.
Well, I for one think that this is complete bull<bleep. It already irritates me that most games for the XBOX are set-up that you have to have an XBOX Live account to enable multi-player. I'm not interested in multi-player with somebody living who knows where, I want multi-player with the people that are right there with me at my home...on the same console. I realize this is a very narrow, well-nigh rare perspective. Of course, the rare times I've played MMOs, I rarely team up with other gamers, and just go about missions singly...due to the fact that the other gamers are not with me in the same room. It's a unique quirk to say the least.
I also hate that my kid has to be signed onto XBOX Live in order to play his disney game or it won't let him log in. If I would've known that, I would never have done it. There is no good reason to enforce something like that. It's just one more way that privacy, regardless of whether its with some simple as console gaming, is eroding.
The next XBOX has been reported to no longer include a disc reader, being completely digital. It's crap. It'll be like eBooks for devices like the Kindle...a newly released eBoook costs just as much as the physical 'dead-tree' edition...robbery plain and simple. The FORCED digital set-up for game purchase will be the same way, expect to pay $50 or $60 for a new title that is directly downloaded to your console...or even worse, stored in your 'cloud'. Digital editions should cost half as much to purchase...as the major expense is mass producing the physical materials to get the games (or books) into your home. It's robbery plain and simple. Sadly, most people won't care and will gladly allow Microsoft and other companies to fleece them on a regular basis.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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He'll be bigger than Leeeroy Jenkins, Son I Am Disappoint, and I used to be an adventurer til I took an arrow to the knee combined.
Yo dawg. I heard you liked memes, so I combined all existing memes into one super meme.
I'm pretty sure something bigger than the combination of the memes above would destroy the internets, all recorded human history and the planet Uranus.
Heh. Uranus.
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I also buy a lot of used games. I see nothing wrong with someone selling their old games and me buying them.
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The rumors for Xbox doing the same have started up again.
I can just say what this would do for me.
Many games I purchase I only do so because I know I can sell them back once I am done. If this killed the Used Game market it would end up causing me to buy less games on the consoles because I would be less willing to risk trying them out.
I also buy a lot of used games. I see nothing wrong with someone selling their old games and me buying them.
People like you are the reason Metallica's drummer can't afford a giant aquarium for a great white shark, and so can only afford to have an aquarium for a porbeagle.
I seen it on Southpark.
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Public outcry earned them $30 apiece, spurred a corporate change in policy, and helped one student sue Amazon for $150,000. It has a pretty okay track record.People did not get their 1984 ebooks back, AFAIK. And even if public outcry helped that time, what if it's just me? I am sorry, I don't see any public outcry happening.Having all 1984 ebooks pulled from all accounts, THAT is an issue. If I invest in a well-stocked account at a distributor, buying lots of software from them... that means they could suddenly, for any reason or no reason, choose to kill my account. The only recourse for me would be to go the legal route...Except that's not true. The public-outcry route is extremely effective, and free. The internet enables digital distribution. It also enables socially-networked PR pressure.
Just curious, do you have a link as to where I can go to get the books I electronically purchased from Wizards of the Coast? The 3.5 books that they pulled from places like Drive-Thru RPG, which I paid to download and have been denied to me for several years?
This was the number one reason I didn't get into 4th ed, with it's online subscription model. They denied me the products I had already purchased.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I am surprised they are not doing away with physical copies all together. With internet and hard drives its unnecessary packaging.
The infrastructure's not quite there yet, certainly not in the UK and USA. Maybe if they were selling exclusively to South Korea and Japan, who are much more efficiently wired up than us.
The next XBOX has been reported to no longer include a disc reader, being completely digital.
I'd be surprised if that was the case. There's a difference between putting in an authentication service and relying completely, 100% on an online connection. In addition, unless the next consoles ship with multi-terabyte hard drives, I don't see the 100% digital option working. It could do (you could have swap-out drives or you could simply delete the game and be free to redownload it at any time), but it seems a lot to ask of the audience, especially the more casual gamer.
Oh? I think we're all aware of the degradation of physical media (just like cars). The examples can also be expanded to used CD, DVD, BD, and book sales as well, not just used cars.
The expected lifetime of a DVD in the course of normal operation is 30 years at the low end. Far longer than anyone will be interested in purchasing used, except on a collector basis (we can get into the shift from consumer good to collector's item later, if you'd like). Cars, on the other hand, are typically used for the entirety of their working lifetime.
There are many very important differences between the two markets. They do not compare in this discussion.
Again, we are talking about physical media here.
Except when we're not. What are you going to do when you can't buy physical discs anymore?
Just as cars can eventually break down (we're also all aware of cars lasting many decades), so can physical media. And, while the experience of using a used vehicle depends (that's quite the "depends" you make) on the quality of the vehicle, so does the experience of a used game depend on the quality of the physical media (scratches, etc). And, again, don't overly concentrate on used vehicles. Expand it to used books, CDs, houses, etc. Anything physical object that can be purchased and then re-sold. It's all applicable.
And, as I've noted, in many of those cases you run into the exact same ethical snag. I'm not saying it's okay to sell your used copy of a film on DVD to someone but it's not okay to sell your used game. I'm saying that, from an ethical standpoint, there are problems with selling both of those things as used products.
You might also want to go into more detail about "the public good" before chirping that there are these nebulous "differences".
Do I really need to defend the idea that we, societally, consider public lending libraries a public good? I should hope that's fairly well-accepted, given that you pay tax dollars to build and fill them.
My previous post/statement continues to hold true: "Purchasing used products (of any sort) is certainly legitimate - and consumers do have the right to sell their property, and have the right of first sale." It really is the end of story.
I'm afraid it isn't. There are many used products that you don't actually own, and for which the used sale thereof is ethically unsound. A good rule of them (but not a perfect one) is that if you have purchased a license rather than ownership of a product, you should carefully consider whether or not it is appropriate to sell used before doing so.
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You (and others) have made several statements that you claim apply to all video games. I have never purchased a license when buying a game disc (or cartridge).Really?
I just picked up the first old game CD I could find. It happened to be the original Diablo. I stuck it in my computer. I hit Install Diablo. You know what immediately popped up?
The End User License Agreement for the game.
That's all well and good, Scotty. You do realize that EULA's for console games (which is what this thread is about, after all) are a very new thing and not all games utilize them at this time? So, your posts about PC EULA's are completely irrelevant.
I mean, you seem to think you are The Authority on the subject. So surely you are aware of this...
I removed some posts. Break it up.
You (and others) have made several statements that you claim apply to all video games. I have never purchased a license when buying a game disc (or cartridge).Really?
I just picked up the first old game CD I could find. It happened to be the original Diablo. I stuck it in my computer. I hit Install Diablo. You know what immediately popped up?
The End User License Agreement for the game.
That's all well and good, Scotty. You do realize that EULA's for console games (which is what this thread is about, after all) are a very new thing and not all games utilize them at this time? So, your posts about PC EULA's are completely irrelevant.
I mean, you seem to think you are The Authority on the subject. So surely you are aware of this...
Oh, cool! I'm down with this. This makes things way better, because we've got all kinds of people in here who have pledged to be done with console games if EULA-like control becomes the norm. Of course, I'm sure many of those people were planning on whiling away their time on computer games instead - where EULA-like control has been the norm for decades.