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It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

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Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#121

Post by hx8 »

keyringlight wrote: post #102
hx8 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Look at the market research. It's growing specifically fast in Asia, but there is also strong growth with North America. Having a PC to check your email, order off amazon, and download recipes is dying. Buying a PC and using it for video games is raising. The PC hardware is getting more expensive, but the upgrade cycles are also extending. If you look at the steam hardware survey most gamers are 1-3 GPU generati…

For the kinds of games where DRM free matters, where they don't have a prominent online/multiplayer side or the equivalent of playing the game 'from the disc', is the console subscription really an issue? I don't have a console myself, but from when I've looked into it there's a bunch of mainly free to play games where that subscription isn't needed as both the publisher and Sony/MS get their money from purchases.

1. An Xbox Live/Playstation Plus is required for any online multiplayer functionality.

2. DRM Free still matters with multiplayer games. Minecraft is a perfect example, where you can run your own client/server and play with people, and there really doesn't need to be any other middle man involved.

3. With how good home internet is now, it's not a big deal to host game servers from your home on an old computer. Running big central servers really only matters if you care about matchmaking or games with a lot of simultaneous players.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#122

Post by MyMemoryfails »

nfw2 wrote: post #117
jbombadil wrote: post #39

I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to: 1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality. 2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after th…

> Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This is obviously absurd as a universal rule. If I "buy" a night in a hotel room, I should own the hotel room? If I order a taxi, I should own the taxi? If I ride a bikeshare e-bike across town, I should own the bike? Whether rent is appropriate or exploitative for a certain product or industry is a fair question, but to say renting should not exist as a concept at a…

I think you misunderstood, the major issue is that companies are actually "renting", it's just at 100k words long terms of services where they redefine "purchase" as rental.

California has actually done something about this, you can longer claim that customers are "buying" when they're actually just renting.

If i claimed i sell a house for 500K but the in terms of sale redefine sale as rent the house for 500K and i can claim the property back anytime, that'd be crime yet it's somehow legal with digital goods.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#126

Post by doctorpangloss »

MyMemoryfails wrote: post #122
nfw2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This is obviously absurd as a universal rule. If I "buy" a night in a hotel room, I should own the hotel room? If I order a taxi, I should own the taxi? If I ride a bikeshare e-bike across town, I should own the bike? Whether rent is appropriate or exploitative for a certain product or industry is a fair question, but to say renting should not exist as a concept at a…

I think you misunderstood, the major issue is that companies are actually "renting", it's just at 100k words long terms of services where they redefine "purchase" as rental. California has actually done something about this, you can longer claim that customers are "buying" when they're actually just renting. If i claimed i sell a house for 500K but the in terms of sale redefine sale as rent the house for 500K and i c…

players have options. they are welcome to wait for releases on GOG.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#127

Post by embedding-shape »

demaga wrote: post #96
jvuygbbkuurx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is literally what most online digital goods already do, like steam.

Sure, but UI needs to reflect that too. I just opened Steam to verify - it definitely says 'Buy {game_name} - Add to Cart'

I remember saying the exact same thing here on HN like two weeks ago, which someone then promptly corrected me saying that Steam/Valve actually "explain" what their "Buy" means right before payment, and I think they were right, there is some greyed out text somewhere explaining you don't actually "Purchase a copy of the game" but you license it via Valve/Steam somehow, can't remember the details atm, later at the checkout process though.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#128

Post by nfw2 »

deadbabe wrote: post #86

I’ve come to realize there are definitely people out there who have no interest in playing games, they just want to own them. A child doesn’t think about ownership, he picks up a controller and plays a game. And when the child has grown bored of the game, one day they just never touch it again like a discarded toy, moving on to something else. It is adults, reminded of their own feeble mortality and impermanence in t…

The vast majority of consumers don't care or think about this at all. It's a loud and tiny minority who imagine this great injustice will lead to some groundswell of rallied consumer support if they just write more blog posts about it.

In reality, if people get continual access to a digital game, the hypothetical case where they might lose access to it isn't all that troubling. And even if the license was specifically a year-term rental or something, most people wouldn't flinch because they go on with their lives after finishing a game.

It's also so convenient to ignore all the reasons the current system is the way it is.

1. Digital goods are just bits and free to copy and distribute online. Publishers use DRM because piracy is otherwise prevent, and they have a right to protect their IP.

2. Publishers can distribute the content that they develop however they see fit. Gamers who didn't make the game aren't owed something by right. Don't purchase the game if the license terms aren't amenable to you. It's a game, not a vital good.

3. Disk drives are a pointless pain-in-the-ass to manufacture if most people don't want them anyway.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#130

Post by pocksuppet »

jbombadil wrote: post #39

I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to: 1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality. 2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after th…

They did this in California, now online stores in California only let you rent games for an indefinite term. Exactly the same as before but the button says "rent"
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