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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

#241

Post by an0malous »

limagnolia wrote: post #176
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…

I would argue that we don't need new regulations, we need to enforce existing laws against fraud. It is fraudulent to sell something and then later disable ones access to the thing you sold them access to.

Exactly, this is just application of property rights and enforcing existing consumer protection rights. You can’t tell someone they’re “buying” something if they don’t own it. Imagine someone doing that with house rentals or car leases, it would obviously be considered fraud.

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

#242

Post by thfuran »

limagnolia wrote: post #176
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…

I would argue that we don't need new regulations, we need to enforce existing laws against fraud. It is fraudulent to sell something and then later disable ones access to the thing you sold them access to.

I would argue that it is likely fraudulent to sell with the intent to later reappropriate but separately illegal to actually do so. It’s some manner of theft or destruction of property.

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

#243

Post by djankauskas »

homer456 wrote: post #236
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress Does such strawman regulation even exist? Some regulation is intentionally designed to limit “progress”, where “progress” happens to have negative externalities. It’s kind of a self-legitimizing opinion. Of course anyone would be against unnecessary regulations. I think the real world is not arguing about whether a regulati…

It takes a minimum of 600 hours of training to get licensed to cut hair in California. Pex plumbing is banned in Chicago as a union protectionist regulation. The "chicken tax" regulation scheme has screwed up the US truck market for decades. Electrical code requirements for the wiring of kitchen islands have changed drastically with very small justification within a short span of time. To this day it is illegal to tr…

These are excellent examples. Regulations are not inherently good or bad, and one of the issues we seem to have in the US is a lack of honest accounting, sometimes purposefully and sometimes due to a lack of state capacity, what the costs and benefits of different regulations are.

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

#244

Post by xboxnolifes »

BatFastard wrote: post #216

Does anyone here remember owning games on disk? It was a royal pain in the ass! You had to inset the disk every time you wanted to play game. The disks got scratched, destroyed, or rearranged by the wife. Steam has saved me from all of that. Plus I can share my whole library with my family members. Sure I might lose access to them all when I die, but 20 years from now who is going to care?

I support the ability to copy the data from the disk and store it digitally, which should resolve all of those concerns.

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

#245

Post by h4kunamata »

I pardon to disagree, it is a physical vs digital problem, and it is our fault.

Companies started pushing digital content and we accepted it, Xbox GamePass has been a cancer (I am Xbox player) with all the games destroyed because of it.

Nobody can disagree that digital games is convenient, turn your PC/Console on and that is it, load the game, start playing something else, etc, without leaving your sofa.

We never thought about the consequences of that, look what happened with DVD, Bluray had luck coz its post-peak era happened by the time people started going back to physical disks over streaming services and the downfall of such services.

This is also related to how everything nowadays is digital, requires subscription which removes features like BMW heated seats, firmware update and what not.

Companies made us addicted to everything digital, that gives them full control, higher price for less, Amazon Prime without ADs requires a higher tier, Sygic Offline mobile app now requires higher tier to have access to features that were once part of the lower tier.

Gaming studios until recently were focused on live services over single player games, it is digital, content is behind paywall, etc and etc.

Digital DLCs over releasing a new game coz that would force physical release.

This is our fault and we might have gone past the point of no return!!

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

#246

Post by superkuh »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #23
superkuh wrote: post #2

Video game companies still remember when they owned the arcade machines and players were required to constantly insert money into the machines to keep playing. They've been chasing that high ever since. The key to owning modern multiplayer online games is to have private servers run by human persons on their own owned computers. But except for TF2 no one has been able to (or cared enough) allow private servers alongs…

Even private servers doesn't quite solve the issue. Minecraft is an example where you can run the server but it requires clients to login to the microsoft account. I think you can still bypass the check on the server but clients have to be cracked or previously authorised for offline play which only lasts for a certain timeframe. So Microsoft can take away the ability to play minecraft despite the game server binary…

With Microsoft "Minecraft", sure. But not that actual Minecraft game. Microsoft is an exception, a bad one, and they added this after they bought the popular game. It is not in any way intrinsic to the Minecraft game experience.

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

#247

Post by jrmg »

me551ah wrote: post #9

If you think in terms of ownership, even then digital is not that bad. I’ve owned digital games since Xbox 360 and I can still play them to this day on my Xbox series X. But not all of my physical games CD/DVDs are in mint condition and some have scratches.

I think this is a big element. I’ve been feeling this a bit too. I’ve been a physical-game buyer in the past - usually saving money by buying used games.

But I’m not going to keep a collection of old consoles in my living room, so at this point it feels more likely that I will be able to actually play games further into the future if I buy digitally.

This is the opposite of what proponents of physical media heavily argue - indeed, many here are making it their only argument - but I suspect it’s how lots of ‘regular people’ that aren’t saturated in digital rights politics feel.

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

#248

Post by jrmg »

downrightmike wrote: post #82
me551ah wrote: post #9

If you think in terms of ownership, even then digital is not that bad. I’ve owned digital games since Xbox 360 and I can still play them to this day on my Xbox series X. But not all of my physical games CD/DVDs are in mint condition and some have scratches.

Sure, but they keep raising the price of everything. And in a world where ram and STORAGE are at a multiple premium, deleting high density discs is completely outside of reality

they keep raising the price of everything

Games are much cheaper in real terms (even in terms of percentage of wages/income, if you don’t believe that’s kept up with inflation generally) than they’ve ever been.

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

#249

Post by rgmerk »

homer456 wrote: post #236
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress Does such strawman regulation even exist? Some regulation is intentionally designed to limit “progress”, where “progress” happens to have negative externalities. It’s kind of a self-legitimizing opinion. Of course anyone would be against unnecessary regulations. I think the real world is not arguing about whether a regulati…

It takes a minimum of 600 hours of training to get licensed to cut hair in California. Pex plumbing is banned in Chicago as a union protectionist regulation. The "chicken tax" regulation scheme has screwed up the US truck market for decades. Electrical code requirements for the wiring of kitchen islands have changed drastically with very small justification within a short span of time. To this day it is illegal to tr…

> Many European countries have draconian laws about air conditioning that are killing people this summer

Cite your sources.

There are specific issues in specific places (eg heritage restrictions in Paris), a higher prevalence of shared infrastructure rather than single family homes, and a higher level of renting rather than home ownership.

And there are people on the green-left end of the political spectrum in parts of northern Europe with weird hangups about air conditioning.

But as best I can tell this claim is false; the biggest reason why air conditioning is not so widespread in Northern Europe as in the United States is that the climate simply hasn’t, until recently, required it.

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

#250

Post by recursivegirth »

scubadude wrote: post #240
feoren wrote: post #103

Earlier 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?

[flagged]

If buying isn't ownership, than piracy isn't stealing.

Government can do what they want, but if they ain't for the people, I ain't for the Government.

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