"looking at you movie industry" - i think 'indie' movies are coming. there's a wave coming and the early signs are the likes of obsession and iron lung. all hope is not lost
It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
151–160 of 549 posts
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#152Earlier 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…
Digital sales overwhelmingly use "buy" as the term in their UI, not "rent". Rental is a separate thing, and I don't think roughly anyone is saying rentals should not exist in any form.
This is just pedantry, and incorrect pedantry at that. BUY does not always mean you gain ownership. You can BUY a license or a haircut and you don't own anything.
Are consumers confused in practice by what happens when they click "Buy" on the playstation store? Does anyone really thing Buy here means they will be able to download the game onto their computer and play it there?
Fine, pass a regulation that makes online stores change the word to license or whatever. Will that relieve your sense of persecution? Or would just you find another way to cast game publishers as the conniving evil empire (market control, collusion to reduce consumer options, etc.) because they aren't giving you what you want?
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach. Every government agency is a useless waste of your tax dollars, except the ones you rely on and the ones where you have friends that work there. Do I have that right?
I understand his comment as being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress. But he would support a regulation for this because it's a violation against the property of the buyer.
Dumb regulation being subjective
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach. Every government agency is a useless waste of your tax dollars, except the ones you rely on and the ones where you have friends that work there. Do I have that right?
I understand his comment as being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress. But he would support a regulation for this because it's a violation against the property of the buyer.
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Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
If someone goes to the playstation store to buy a playstation game, you don't think it's clear that they can only play the game on playstation? I think consumers understand what they are buying even if they don't think in terms like revocable licenses and drm. They aren't ignorant just because they don't care about these abstract issues that don't affect their lives at all, practically speaking.
Yes, but first sale doctrine on physical goods means that I can take my Playstation game, which only works on Playstations, and sell it to.a friend after I'm done playing it, or pick up a copy 5-10 years after the game was originally published for cheap from a second hand store like Goodwill. People do understand that, and are understandably pissed off that those same rights don't transfer to the digital realm. If I…
I am understandably pissed that Apple no longer makes small 5-inch iphones because I like them. But other consumers like the bigger phones, so Apple discontinued the mini line.
Is Apple doing me an injustice by not selling me the good that I want?
Is this a question of rights or consumer preferences?
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
players have options. they are welcome to wait for releases on GOG.
Personally i only purchase DRM free games, but it doesn't still change that fact that major digital storefronts use misleading terms. Maybe physical disks would maintain popularity if customers knew they'd be renting the product for unknown period time instead of owning it. It's easy to forget that average joe doesn't understand the consequences when we're on our own bubbles. Edit: The media outrage when Sony removed…
As yes, the poor, ignorant average joe, who doesn't realize the game they buy on the PLAYSTATION store needs PLAYSTATION to work in order to play it. If only enough bloggers wrote enough articles to enlighten them, then they would join the mob and demand forever access to the games they play for 3 weeks then never play again.
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#157Maybe you think gaming/media companies are greedy and should make less money. But if you want the industry to continue in the current state, keep in mind the price of games needs to be adjusted:
price *= (total game sales / avg player count)
I'm not arguing either way, but this is the back of the napkin math to consider, and how that would ripple across the industry, for better or worse.
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#158I 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…
Copyright protection is regulation. Limiting it ins't increasing regulation; it's decreasing regulation.
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has been the case for software since the very beginning. And people have been complaining about it since the beginning. See the Free Software Foundation.
No matter what they wrote in the document, the fact was always that you had the game on a disc and nothing would stop you playing it in violation of the words in the document.
The same is true of digital downloads, insofar as both the disc and the digital download don't have DRM.
In other words, you completely missed the point that this is about DRM and not physical vs digital.
Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
#160Earlier 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…
All your examples make clear to the customer that their access is temporary and conditional on their continued and ongoing payment, and that ownership of the good/service is retained by the seller. On the other hand, "buying a game" is given the guise of ownership, despite true ownership still being retained by the seller, obscured by the fact you're making a one-time payment. It'd be reasonable if the terminology us…
It is now in California, as they passed more "useless" regulation requiring digital "sales" to use different terminology than "buy", yet what people are asking for is clearly not what they want because as predicted this terminology enforcement doesn't change a thing.
Clearly, more thoughtless regulation will solve the problem this time.