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Piracy

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Re: Piracy

#71

Post by fourfour3 »

close04 wrote: post #60
fourfour3 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam doesn’t really compare to Netflix and Spotify - it’s not a subscription service where you can play whatever is currently available and titles appear and disappear with no notice. You buy individual games on Steam and it stays on your account indefinitely - you do have to pick and choose what you buy. Something like Microsoft’s Game Pass is closer to Netflix and Spotify than Steam. Steam is more like the old iTu…

> Steam doesn’t really compare to Netflix and Spotify - it’s not a subscription service where you can play whatever is currently available and titles appear and disappear with no notice. This is true, you don't need to pay an ongoing subscription for continued access to the games. > You buy individual games on Steam and it stays on your account indefinitely - you do have to pick and choose what you buy. But I'm very…

Ah, I was meaning "indefinitely" in the sense of "an unspecified period of time" :)

Practically, it's very rare for games to disappear from a Steam library once purchased. It happens for stolen/fraudulently purchased keys (eg keys bought with stolen credit cards), but for a whole game it's very rare.

It has happened, but generally for games that relied on online servers for functionality and the servers have been taken down.

Re: Piracy

#72

Post by SSLy »

anal_reactor wrote: post #28
dailykoder wrote: post #3

> The streaming platforms, for which you pay full price, don’t even let you choose the quality of the movie you want to watch. What you watch today might disappear from all platforms in two months. I have seen so many songs disappear from Spotify lately that I am considering to hoard music again. Gladly I have most of those that disappeared on my HDD anyways, since it's been mostly old songs, but yeah. Was kinda frus…

How do you discover new music? That's been an issue for me, considering how I don't use Spotify.

[redacted]'s daily and weekly top10. Last.fm, reddit, Apple Music.

Re: Piracy

#73

Post by SSLy »

averageRoyalty wrote: post #54
remedan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do yourself the favor of joining Red and download your music in flac or mp3 made from high-quality sources instead of YouTube. The interview is not hard to pass if you prepare for it.

Was red the eventual winner after what/pth? I never found out what happened post what.

pth was red's former name

Re: Piracy

#74

Post by globular-toast »

Topfi wrote: post #32
globular-toast wrote: post #22

I don't think Spotify should be celebrated. For a start, Spotify exists because the music companies basically lost against piracy, but it was their own fault. That devalued recorded music to such an extent they had to change that business model. They collect a paltry amount from streaming (the artists get even less), but it's all they can get now. They've changed their model entirely. Bands are gone. Generic, marketa…

While Spotify was mentioned in the original post, it isn't the only game in town and there are alternatives like Deezer and Tidal, which offer higher-quality masters, more consistent libraries and ensure a better compensation for artists. > The only way the record companies could have kept selling records is with vinyl. But they killed that to get more profits decades ago. Maybe I don't understand something about you…

> Maybe I don't understand something about your point, but why skip over CDs and direct sales of single tracks, as popularized by iTunes?

The way I see it, there are three choices:

1. Sell a physical good and let the free market do its thing,

2. Sell a service and let the free market do its thing,

3. Attempt to create a non-free market using various combinations of technical and legal means (e.g. DRM, copyright etc.)

Vinyl records were an example of (1). They couldn't practically be duplicated. But CDs could and the free market very quickly realised this. So CDs were the beginning of their journey down route (3) which they eventually lost. They have now settled on method (2) just like movies, games and everything else.

Re: Piracy

#75

Post by globular-toast »

averageRoyalty wrote: post #56
globular-toast wrote: post #22

I don't think Spotify should be celebrated. For a start, Spotify exists because the music companies basically lost against piracy, but it was their own fault. That devalued recorded music to such an extent they had to change that business model. They collect a paltry amount from streaming (the artists get even less), but it's all they can get now. They've changed their model entirely. Bands are gone. Generic, marketa…

> Want to listen to Queen? Well, I hope you like the god awful remasters, because that's all that is available on Spotify. A tangant, but has anyone noticed a number of albums on Spotify have been replaced with "deluxe" versions recently? I feel like every time I go to listen to an old favourite albums of mine, new tracks have been inserted which completely break the flow.

Yes, I've noticed this too. Even worse, I've found some electronic albums that have been "reworked" by the artist so what you get is not at all what you wanted (assuming familiarity with the original).

Re: Piracy

#76

Post by tempfile »

xfz wrote: post #21
dailykoder wrote: post #3

> The streaming platforms, for which you pay full price, don’t even let you choose the quality of the movie you want to watch. What you watch today might disappear from all platforms in two months. I have seen so many songs disappear from Spotify lately that I am considering to hoard music again. Gladly I have most of those that disappeared on my HDD anyways, since it's been mostly old songs, but yeah. Was kinda frus…

I've experienced this for over a decade. If I like the music I'm renting, I buy the CD and rip it to FLAC.

This is even easier if it's on Bandcamp :)

Re: Piracy

#77

Post by majewsky »

codelord wrote: post #31

Having worked in the game industry in the past it's amusing to see people talk about the greed of game developers. You have no idea! You have no idea what an effort it takes to ship a game. An album is the work of one or a few individuals for a relatively short period of time with very little cost. Because of that you can have services like Spotify that allow pretty much access to all the music ever created for a 10$…

> services like Spotify [...] allow pretty much access to all the music ever created for a 10$ fee. The math just doesn't work with video games.

Are you not describing XBox Game Pass?

Re: Piracy

#79

Post by aucisson_masque »

shiroiushi wrote: post #14
Log_out_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Update: The non crap you bought is now micro transaction crap. Bait and switch! Have you considered alternative ideas now that benevolent capitalism and resposible consumer are falling apart?

Just download some emulators and some roms for them, and you can play thousands of 80s-90s games all you want for free. You'll never have to worry about them turning into microtransaction crap, plus the gameplay is far better than anything current.

How is the gameplay far better than anything current ?

Genuine question tho, I just recently started playing again with portal and find most game to be boring, even the acclaimed one like cyberpunk and rdr2, but I don't see how Mario bros and likes could be remotely better.

Imo gaming peaked between 2000 and 2010.

Re: Piracy

#80

Post by SXX »

whstl wrote: post #40
codelord wrote: post #31

Having worked in the game industry in the past it's amusing to see people talk about the greed of game developers. You have no idea! You have no idea what an effort it takes to ship a game. An album is the work of one or a few individuals for a relatively short period of time with very little cost. Because of that you can have services like Spotify that allow pretty much access to all the music ever created for a 10$…

When people say "greed of game developers" they're clearly not talking about rank-and-file devs, they're talking about development companies. > An album is the work of one or a few individuals for a relatively short period of time with very little cost Kind of ironic that you're saying that.

Majority of "development companies" are also shit poor and go bankrupt in after 1 or 2 projects even if they're moderately successful. Basically it's just hard to make profit in this industry and well over 90% of games never recouperate development costs.

Gamedev is just hard and there are very few exceptions like Epic or Rockstar that even get an option to become "greedy".

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