Just like the MPAA didn't learn from the RIAA, the games industry is next

[wraith808]

Maybe not, but it could be if idiots like this get their say.

Blog post by Jameson Durall against used games.

From the comments - if you want to boycott this idiot's games, just have good taste!

Saints Row 4 (To Be Announced)
inSANE (2013)
Saints Row: The Third (2011)
Red Faction: Armageddon (2011)
Red Faction: Guerrilla (2009)
Saints Row 2 (2008)
Saints Row (2006)
The Punisher (2005)
Red Faction II (2002)
Summoner 2 (2002)
Red Faction (2001)
Summoner (2000)
FreeSpace 2 (1999)
Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War (1998)

[Stoic Joker]

Nice to see the guy getting his ass ripped off in the comments section for that nonsense.

[Innuendo]

Oh, it's not just this guy. Big publishers like EA and UbiSoft are speaking out against used games and trying their best to make it so it's not worth buying a game used.

Despicable.

[steeladept]

Oh, it's not just this guy. Big publishers like EA and UbiSoft are speaking out against used games and trying their best to make it so it's not worth buying a game used.

Despicable.

-Innuendo (February 07, 2012, 12:16 PM)

Well that's easy.  Price them to where used games are useless - but then they can't a**rape the public for each crappy followup that is little more than a feature pack to the original...

[Deozaan]

Don't boycott those games. Buy them used if you want them.

[40hz]

I think what most consumers don’t realize is that every time they buy a used game, there is ZERO money making it back to the Game Developers.  All of those profits are going directly to the re-seller and making it more and more difficult for us to continue making higher quality products.

The Question is, what can we do about it?

Game Developers have recently been trying to figure out ways to address this on our own over the last few years and have come up with some ideas that I’m actually beginning to like!

(Link to full article here. )

Talk about hubris. Further from Jameson Durall's blog :

There’s another big rumor about the next Xbox console that could really start to shake things up…it won’t play used games at all!  Personally I think this would be a fantastic change for our business and even though the consumers would be up in arms about it at first…they will grow to understand why and that it won’t kill them.

(Link to full article here. )

The 40hz NSFW analysis of J.Durall's sage words

From the Gospel according to 40hz (Ch:7 V:17):

The phrase "FUCK YOU!" takes many forms.

Jameson Durall's paragraph above is yet another way of saying it.

 

[rgdot]

I don't do the torrent and music downloads because I don't believe in that type of stuff but this way different.
 
Some good comments there, one by "Casey Wollschlager" sums it up one and for all.

So, like anything else that i buy, i paid $60 for it, now i own it and can do whatever i want with it.  I can agree that if they put an easy to understand label on the package that says that it is a one time use purchase and it will not be transferable, i will make my buying decision based on that info.  Regardless, i can't support developer's complaints that they don't get paid from the used market.  Who does for any product?  My example is going to be a ford mustang...  I buy a new mustang at the ford dealership.  Ford makes $3-4 thousand from the purchase.  2 years later, i sell it to some guy and make some of what i paid for it back.  Of course, Ford makes no money.  2 months after the guy buys it, it needs a new door handle.  He pays $75 at the ford dealership and ford makes some money(Hey, it sounds like DLC to me).  The point is, if your original product is worth anything, DLC will be of interest to everyone who buys it whether it is used or new.  If your business model doesn't make a profit on the first dsales, then you need to sell a better product.  There is a secondary market for almost every product that exists.

[40hz]

On a related note - exactly what didn't the game industry learn from the RIAA and MPAA?

The RIAA and MPAA have seen ACTA passed in several places. And although there is a hue and cry breaking out about it, ACTA has yet to be formally overturned by any of its signatory nations.

So while there's still a lot of Sturm und Drang going on over it, it's still not a sure thing that all that screaming is going to change anything. Or defeat ACTA.

Even SOPA and PIPA aren't gone indefinitely. Once the next US election is over, they'll be back. The only difference is they'll be attached under different names as 'riders' to some huge and absolutely essential bill. And they'll be ten times harder to spot as a result when they come up for a vote.

Then there's what happened with Megauploads...

Right now, I think the gaming industry has been emboldened by the recent successes of the RIAA and MPAA - who are slowly but steadily getting everything they're demanding from our world's governments.

[rgdot]

I know nobody needs to read my political one liners again  but...

We are still the ones voting for these people. These who did and tried, will try again, will hide it under other bills, etc.

[wraith808]

Don't boycott those games. Buy them used if you want them.

-Deozaan (February 07, 2012, 01:12 PM)

I wouldn't even buy them *used*.  Buying them used creates a market... I want it to get to the point where this @$$hat's work isn't even worth reselling... you walk into Gamestop and they tell you "We can't buy your new version of Saint's Row 4 because no one will buy it."  That makes people even less likely to buy them new.

[Renegade]

The US basically has no manufacturing anymore, and IP is the only remaining industry there, so it makes sense for this kind of push to make IP holy and untouchable, etc. etc.

+1 for the recent ACTA silliness emboldening the gaming industry.


At the moment, it looks like the IP mafia isn't content to simply have their rights -- they want to control YOUR rights and how you use anything they produce.

This is extremely dangerous.

Next, you'll buy a game, but need to pay extra for a 2-player option, more for a 3-player option, etc. Each player will need their own account, so you can't just let anyone play on YOUR computer/console with the game that YOU bought. No more inviting friends over, unless they've ponied up.

Again, this is EXACTLY the same issue that Richard Stallman brought up in his essay/story, "The Right to Read".

Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment—for not taking pains to prevent the crime.

 Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read his books. She might want the computer only to write her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books might be the only way she could graduate.

IP does not exist. It is invented. It is a control mechanism. You cannot "own" an idea. The moment you share an idea, the world is richer for it, and you are none the poorer. I'd posted a quote by Thomas Jefferson in another thread -- same thing here:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

The fallacy of ideas as property is the core problem. As long as people cling to that, there will be conflict.

But the business community is drunk on the idea of "infinite growth", which is simply an illusion.

And apparently the gaming industry is drinking from the same cup now.

This can only end badly unless some fundamentally flawed principles are reversed.

[Carol Haynes]

We are still the ones voting for these people. These who did and tried, will try again, will hide it under other bills, etc.

-rgdot (February 07, 2012, 02:44 PM)

There is truth in that but also it hides a fallacy - it doesn't matter who you vote for they are all bought and paid for - if not by big business and corporations then by their own party structure where they are compelled to vote against their conscience and their constituents on pain of losing their livelihood. And it doesn't really matter which 'democratic' country you are in.

The simple truth is democracy is dead - it doesn't exist - it has ceased to be - it is no more - it fucking snuffed it (to parapharase a well known sketch).

Actually that assumes that all the historical propaganda about democracy was ever true - anywhere. Democracy was born in Greece (Athens actually) but even then it wasn't what most people today understand by the term. With the best will in the world where has democracy got Greece to today?

In the UK 100 years ago we had a 'constitutional democracy' - but it was also true that over 50% of the UK population had no right to vote. Now everyone has the right to vote but unless people are prepared to vote for a government of independent candidates they have no choice on who they vote for and even less choice on the policies they are voting for (which automatically reverse once the election is over anyway). Add to that many laws are passed down or overridden by EU law which isn't in any sense democratic and where exactly is the democracy the 'alliance' is supposed to be exporting to undemocratic countries?

[rgdot]

What you are saying is true but the defeatism won't improve anything either. By saying and thinking what you posted they have really won, our apathy (or similar sentiment) is and has become their greatest weapon. And also, we can not keep on living thinking that all of us can be bought and there is no chance of "true democracy".

[Renegade]

Add to that many laws are passed down or overridden by EU law which isn't in any sense democratic and where exactly is the democracy the 'alliance' is supposed to be exporting to undemocratic countries?

-Carol Haynes (February 07, 2012, 07:42 PM)

NAILED IT!

The question then is, exactly who is your new dictator?

[wraith808]

The fallacy of ideas as property is the core problem. As long as people cling to that, there will be conflict.

-Renegade (February 07, 2012, 07:14 PM)

I think that this is a case of no one going to the middle.  You have one side that thinks that ideas cannot and should not have ownership, and others that think that they have to hold onto it with both hands.  IMO, neither is correct.  When we say that you cannot own an idea, then the characters that we have grown up with become meaningless.  That's when despite the wishes of Bill Watterson, when he decides not to make any more Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, someone else makes cheap rip-offs for the money... or even worse, they do it while he's publishing his.

I understand the concept of what you're saying (probably) isn't advocating this, but isn't this the same thing that a lot of our protests against PIPA and SOPA are about?  The abilities that these laws give rather than in many case the truths of what would come about even if passed?

[40hz]

What you are saying is true but the defeatism won't improve anything either. By saying and thinking what you posted they have really won, our apathy (or similar sentiment) is and has become their greatest weapon. And also, we can not keep on living thinking that all of us can be bought and there is no chance of "true democracy".

-rgdot (February 07, 2012, 08:22 PM)

There's a big difference between not kidding yourself you won and being a defeatist.

And the single biggest tactical mistake you can make in a battle like this one is to lull yourself into a false sense of victory before you've conclusively attained it. And that is going to take a lot more work than has been done so far.

What we've recently had is a minor skirmish with both sides feeling each other out and gauging the degree and nature of the support both sides can expect to get on this issue. It's little more than queen's pawn to queen's pawn 3 so far. An opening move. The real battle hasn't even begun yet. And the gloves won't come off until some time after that.

So beware of irrational exuberance when it comes to largely symbolic gains in the early rounds of conflict. I've seen more than a few worthy movements defeated by that.

Assumptions are deadly. Which is why it's so necessary to maintain vigilance.

As it stands right now, those arguing for a free net are down a point. We gained a temporary stay of execution by getting PIPA and SOPA put on hold. But that's all we got.

Or did we?

The media lobby got ACTA signed into law while we were sitting around congratulating ourselves on how well "we showed 'em."

Now SOPA and PIPA are looking more and more like a diversionary tactic. The classic red herring. The disposable infantry units that got sent out to draw fire and distract attention away from what the real game was - getting ACTA signed as quickly, and in as many countries, as possible.

My point in my earlier post wasn't to concede defeat. It was to acknowledge the very real chance that we just might have been had. And big time too!

And if that upsets some people, or rains on their parade badly enough that their confidence is shattered - and now they're worried they might lose faith in the cause ,well... maybe we should let them. Because those of us who are in it for the long haul don't need them. And considering what's to come, we'd probably be better off without them. Because it's going to get a lot harder before we even see the slightest glimmer of real hope this nonsense is going to be put to rest.

And we can up our chances for success by not letting ourselves feel good until we actually have something to feel good about.



There's a great moment in the Terry Pratchett story Hogfather where a governess is speaking to two young children who are crying because they are afraid of the monster they know is hiding in the basement of their house just waiting for them to fall asleep. The governess asks the children to repeat back to her what she told them they should do whenever they felt afraid. The children dutifully respond "Don't get afraid - get angry!"

Not a bad piece of advice.  

Why it's good to feel bad about some things!

If you study NLP, there's a technique used to forment change. In NLP's scheme of things, change itself isn't hard. Change occurs in the psychological equivalent of a quantum shift. It takes place in an instant. A new circuit is forged and switched on. Bang! Done!

What takes time, and is very hard, is getting up the resolve to make that change.

And one way to get up that resolve is to begin by not trying to smooth over pain and adapt to it. On the contrary, you're taught to wallow in it until you can't stand it. And then use that like rocket fuel to attain escape velocity.

Here's a proven 3-step technique for bringing about change ala NLP:

Step-1:  Feel your pain. Deeply. Horribly. Let it become unbearable. Do not attempt to rationalize it away.

Step-2: Allow yourself get to the point of where you want to scream: This is intolerable! I cannot live even one more second like this!!! This has absolutely got to change!!!!!

Step-3: Now remind yourself the only way anything is ever going to change is if you yourself change it.

Anybody who has ever gone through this "dark night of the soul" process will tell you it's astonishingly effective. Maybe not very enjoyable. But effective nevertheless.
 

[rgdot]

I have never thought that these temporary gains are good in any way, with the current system we are doomed. However, I still believe the power to make the radical changes is there, they are just not exercised. So as long as there are the type of people delivering, just as an example, tonight's US primary results this planet has no chance.

Reason for emphasis is that people, not just some faceless corporations, are paving the way for this mess (again citing tonight's votes as an example). You can't even say money rules, tonight's winner has the least amount of money in the bank.

[Renegade]

The fallacy of ideas as property is the core problem. As long as people cling to that, there will be conflict.

-Renegade (February 07, 2012, 07:14 PM)

I think that this is a case of no one going to the middle.  You have one side that thinks that ideas cannot and should not have ownership, and others that think that they have to hold onto it with both hands.  IMO, neither is correct.  When we say that you cannot own an idea, then the characters that we have grown up with become meaningless.  That's when despite the wishes of Bill Watterson, when he decides not to make any more Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, someone else makes cheap rip-offs for the money... or even worse, they do it while he's publishing his.

I understand the concept of what you're saying (probably) isn't advocating this, but isn't this the same thing that a lot of our protests against PIPA and SOPA are about?  The abilities that these laws give rather than in many case the truths of what would come about even if passed?

-wraith808 (February 07, 2012, 09:58 PM)

Well, it's tough ground.

Half the problem is that very few people are actually equipped with the right concepts to even talk about the topic. So, at the end of the day, you have people spouting opinions that are about as intelligent as anything I have to say on what it feels like to menstruate.

If we take the basic empirical approach, then there is no debate whatsoever -- ideas cannot be property. Period. You can only have exclusive access to an idea if you never share/reveal it. But even then, someone else might think of the same idea... History is full of these kinds of things, e.g. Calculus with Liebniz and Descartes, even though it was known elsewhere centuries before.

Fundamentally, even to consider that an idea can be property requires an entirely different metaphysics. (To be honest, I think that it's going to be a very difficult thing to allow for ideas to be property under any set of metaphysics. My get tells me that they are all going to be inherently contradictory in untenable ways and will require violence and conflict to be primary values.)

That is, without a common set of metaphysics to form the base for the conversation, virtually all debate is destined to result in nothing but red herrings.


So... given that there can be no agreement on the topic, we are basically left to "faking" it. That is, we can "pretend" that ideas can be owned. The advantage there is that whether or not it's true, we can act as though it is.


But even then, depending on what side of the sphere you're on (because there are oh so, so, so many sides...), there may be no advantage at all to pretending, so why bother? If there is no upside, why play the game?


I find that more and more I'm being drawn towards complete abolishment of ownership for ideas. However, most of my motivations there are entirely unrelated to copyright/patent/IP, and more geared towards "control". i.e. Copyright/patent/IP are simply tools of control, but I'm more interested in the root of power/control.


Still... I can't get past "if there's no upside, why should I play?"

That is, the so-called "rights owners" are asking us all to blindly cooperate with them and hand over our money/wealth.


Does anyone see just how utterly insane it is?


Let me put this as a couple kids talking on the playground about the rules for a game...

A: Ok, we're going to play a game.
B: YAY!
A: Here's how it goes... I get to increase my score whenever I want. Then I win. And you have to give me your dessert from lunch.
B: Huh?
A: 100 points! I win! Isn't this fun? Now where's my dessert?


Why would anyone ever agree to those rules? There are lots of other kids out there, and lots of other games to play.


Well, I for one am voting with my wallet. I simply won't buy anything anymore if I don't have to. Sure, there will be times when I need to, but they're going to be a lot fewer now than in the past.

No more games. (Never was much into them anyways.)

No more books. I can get lots for free.

No more movies. Why? I can get tonnes of great stuff for free on YouTube or Vimeo. (I'm going to have to cave on this from time to time for the wife.)

No more software if I can avoid it. I'm agreeing with Richard Stallman more and more all the time. These threads are really only driving me more and more into the FSF/GPL/"whatever you want to call it" camp. (Again, I'll have to cave in here sometimes.)

Flat out -- they just don't have anything that I need. Nothing.


The more the control freaks scream and fuss, the further away I'll run. I'm just getting tired of it. i.e. I think my attitude now is pretty well summed up like this:

NSFW

Fine. Take your fucking ball and just go the fuck home already. I'm sick of your goddamn fucking whining you little fucking bitch.

SFW

Fine. Take your ball and just go home already. I'm sick of your whining you little (please see above).

But, I change my mind all the time. If I find a better way or better logic, then I'll run down that path. So, tomorrow may be different... Though somehow I doubt it...

The media lobby got ACTA signed into law while we were sitting around congratulating ourselves on how well "we showed 'em."

Now SOPA and PIPA are looking more and more like a diversionary tactic. The classic red herring. The disposable infantry units that got sent out to draw fire and distract attention away from what the real game was - getting ACTA signed as quickly, and in as many countries, as possible.

-40hz (February 07, 2012, 10:15 PM)

+1

Glad you brought that up.

My guess is that this was all quite deliberate and planned. I do not believe that this was a coincidence.

[Ehtyar]

Reads like satire. If everyone in this thread so far hadn't taken it seriously, I'd be inclined to think it was a joke.

Ehtyar.

[mahesh2k]

Amazon did this with kindle and they found out that this is not working as they expected. You can't stop people from book loaning or sharing as this is part of society. So they started new twisted version of loaning the book. They have a premium membership where users can get books for set period for free and the book author gets fund based on the loaned numbers*book value+/- few other variables.

If what this developer says turns out into reality will surely create problem to limited period. Life will go on once again because most of the time consumers whine and they get back to the entertainment again. This is the reason using windows desktop is turning out to be more of problem compared to linux and apple. People who subscribe to -"life is too shot" are going to be playing games even in this walled garden condition. Steam is one more area where they may control the loaning or resell or transfer of the games, which is surely going to affect their business, because industry is watching how amazon and apple are winning by restricting consumers into the walled garden. I am not surprised to see game devs interested in doing this. Sometimes I feel 40hz's comments related to these market control are indeed coming out as a reality. I find it hard to see game sellers making changes in the box or dvd's in a such way that taking that dvd to friends house during weekend is going to be a crime or going to make copy useless in any other machine after single installation. That sucks, it's worst than piracy. It's like using some chinese gadget for a month and later using it as paperweight.

[Carol Haynes]

What you are saying is true but the defeatism won't improve anything either. By saying and thinking what you posted they have really won, our apathy (or similar sentiment) is and has become their greatest weapon. And also, we can not keep on living thinking that all of us can be bought and there is no chance of "true democracy".

-rgdot (February 07, 2012, 08:22 PM)

I don't think I am being defeatist. I am being a realist.

The fundamental problem is not the RIAA/MPAA and the rest of them it is the fact they have bought politicians in most countries now - certainly in America. True you might be able to shame a few politicians into stepping up with opposition to SOPA when an election is in the not too distant future but at the end of the day we all know what RIAA/MPAA will do next and they will get what they want.

Its not even as though the US are being bought and paid for by US companies most of the time - certainly most of the entertainment business now is pretty much owned by Far Eastern companies like Sony - so your politicians are being bribed/funded/extorted/blackmailed (pick one they all apply) by multinationals.

Outside the US things are less clear cut - but the EU is an example of a group of countries who basically follow the US into all sorts of calamitous decisions, not particularly because we believe in the reasons but we fear to be ostracised, esp. the UK and the 'special relationship' which basically means we allow the US to use the UK like a large US military base.

The only way to really tackle the problem (and this is my genuine belief) is to persuade people to vote for genuinely local politicians who have no party allegiance. While party structures exist as they do in the US and the UK the public only actually get to vote for the people who have already been vetted and approved by these corporate oligarchs.

The main problem with this approach is that you have to persuade the current system to change the whole stucture of a so called democracy in which they have massive personal and financial self interest.

There are two approaches that could be campaigned for  - armed struggle and a real physical revolution (which I don't really fancy) or a much more difficult path of persuasion. A simple start for that persuasion is the removal of the right to political donations - give all candidates in an election equal funding from an election fund and equal access to the media - then have local primaries to cut down the local candidate list - but decided by the electorate not smoke filled rooms of political party members. Also make voting compulsory - with a large fine if you don't without a very good reason. Finally have a 'non of the above box' on every ballot paper and force a new election if that box wins!

[4wd]

Also make voting compulsory - with a large fine if you don't without a very good reason.

-Carol Haynes (February 08, 2012, 02:59 AM)

Living in a country where voting is compulsory, (along with the attendant fine if you don't), I'd have to say it won't change much of anything.

You only have to look at our current crop of idiots to see that.

The equal campaign funding for all does have merit but I can never see that as happening simply because the people that would have to make it law are the same idiots in charge.

[tomos]

Finally have a 'none of the above box' on every ballot paper and force a new election if that box wins!

-Carol Haynes (February 08, 2012, 02:59 AM)

I like that one

[40hz]

Can't speak for the UK, but when it comes to the US, I'm glad more people don't vote regulary.

Broad voter indifference is about the only thing preventing mob rule right now. Not to mention constraining our tendency to think that maybe some form of fascism is what we really need to "save" our nation.

I think it was Ambrose Bierce who described American Democracy as being a political system based on the belief that rule by 400 craven idiots was preferable to being ruled by one mad king.

Imagine what would happen if 400 idiots became 200 million...

 

 

[wraith808]

If we take the basic empirical approach, then there is no debate whatsoever -- ideas cannot be property. Period. You can only have exclusive access to an idea if you never share/reveal it. But even then, someone else might think of the same idea... History is full of these kinds of things, e.g. Calculus with Liebniz and Descartes, even though it was known elsewhere centuries before.

-Renegade (February 08, 2012, 12:06 AM)

While it is true that anything that you say or do that is not obfuscated in some manner cannot be owned, where does this leave the creative side of things?  If you take the money grubbing out, and leave out the non-personal aspect of the corporations, and get back to the very basics as my example above... where is it right or fair that someone who creates this idea and does all of the work on it loses it just because they want to share what they did with the world?

If I create something with my writing that inspires others, then that's a great thing.  But if someone takes my characters to make a profit off of those characters that I create, then in what place is that fair?  And is the only choice give it away or keep it to yourself?