A point of contraversy (part 1) - Buying a game used is as bad as pirating?

[Baresark]

I was just discussing this with a buddy of mine last night at dinner. He managed a chain restaurant and does have a lot of general business knowledge. His take was basically that the used game in question is paid for already, the publisher already got his cut of the money. There is a physical game floating around and whatever the owner of said game wants to do with it, he can.

Perhaps the car dealership is a bad example, so lets go into an entertainment industry example. You can buy second hand copies of both DVD's and music CD's and books. No one tries to prevent these things from being resold or given away. And, I have reason to believe they are not too dissimilar in the way money exchanges hands between a publisher and developer. The bulk of what a developer makes from a game is given before the game is released. A better developer can get more for their work, beyond just what the direct cost of production is. Then there may be a reward system based on sales such as what you can get when you are a music artist, or what you can get based on your contract with your book publisher.

The fact is, second hand is OK within the confines of music, movies and books. But it's not within the confines of video games, the industries are very similar, I believe the pay system works pretty much the same. It should be ok in the video game industry as well. The thing is, people have a habit of holding onto things they like. I keep all the books, movies, and music CD's I like, and all the video games I like. I get rid of the ones I do not care for. As the owner of the items in question, I am allowed to do that.

Piracy is outright theft of a someones work. In a previous post I said that not reaping the benefit of your labor is akin to slavery or serfdom. This rule still applies. Piracy is morally reprehensible. But, it's not the same as if I make computer processors and they get stolen either. Data is nearly infinite at next to no cost. Virtual goods are a new thing, the newest really. Only computers have had this particular problem, and only since the PC has become common place. As far as economics is concerned, the near infinite nature of it makes it the most unique item. In one sense it's just as common as water, but in another sense it's more rare than diamonds because it's a creative collaboration between (usually) many people, and the product would not be yielded without that exact setup of people. It's like the Manhattan project, it was possible because 186,000 worked on it, and it was hard for any other country to commit on that level.

 

[WaruTaru]

That's a problem, actually. I'm guilty of having a fairly large Steam account (mainly because the sales are even cheaper than buying used, and I don't mind getting a rental when I'm clearly paying for one anyway), but it occasionally gives me problems, even though I live in a part of the country that gets relatively good internet. Every time I go on vacation or otherwise wind up out of reach of the internet, Steam gives me tons of problems. Even offline mode only works when it wants to -- half the time it tells me it can't connect to the network, so I can't play my offline game in offline mode. I'm one of the lucky ones; there are huge swaths of this country -- one of the biggest first world countries in existence -- that still can't get high speed internet. Heck, there are portions of the country (mainly out west) that have a hard time even getting phone lines, let alone decent internet. We're still a very long way off from digital distribution being a viable release method on its own, without support from hard copies.

But that is the destination all indie devs will eventually reach. Retail just doesn't do them justice. Big, giant publishers that rely on their franchises dominate the shelve space. Big, giant publishers do not like risks, especially if said risk costs 30 million per pop. You end up with those publishers leaning heavily on their successful franchise, which means you are buying and playing the same game with a bit of a new twist for each new release.

True, those without phone line and internet will not be able to play games that require constant connection. But if they don't have phone line and internet, a game is the least of their concern. As for you not being able to play on Offline mode, grab a hand held They'll eventually sort out their bugs in the future (hopefully).

 

[Merkavar]

thats like saing buying used furniture is like stealing the furniture from the company who made it.

buying used games is perfectly fine in my books. so you have a game, the publisher got their money and its now sitting in someones cupboard gathering dust or the guy sells it and someone else enjoys the games and might buy the sequel.

As a player:
1) If all you want to do is to play the game, download the free pirated version.
2) If you want to get it for cheap, download the free pirated version.
3) If you want to support the developers/publishers, but it new.

If you disagree, answer this: why buy a used game if you can download it for free? You aren't supporting the developers/publishers with your act of kindness. If its not worth buying new, its not worth buying at all. Save your money and do something else with it instead. And if you liked the game you downloaded? Show your support by buying the developer's next new game. By doing that, you are getting two games worth of content for the price of one new game, yes?

well for one pirating games is illegal, some games are not worth buying new but are perfectly fine games for the cheaper used price.

why buy a game if you can download it for free? cause its the right thing to do, you can get lots of things for free but people dont cause its wrong or you will get punished. why buy a car when you can get one for free with a brick to the window?


thats like saying libaries should all be burnt to the ground cause it doesnt benefit the writers of the books cause 100s of people read the books with out buying.

i just dont understand why people think used games are bad. quit qqing and live with a 2nd hand market.

 

[Vivi22]

Let me put an example of how buying used games makes people loose jobs.

Bullshit. Half baked attempt at an example of accounting aside, I have never heard of a company shutting down because they were sitting right on the edge of almost making enough money to keep making games but didn't and blaming it on used game sales. If they were actually in the kind of situation where the relatively small amount of revenue lost to used sales would be enough to break them then they weren't there because people bought used. They were there because they made a shitty game, they didn't have enough marketing, or the game was hugely delayed and over budget. Not because some people bought a used copy.

And funny story, but there are a lot of game developers that go under or are shut down by the publishers that own them after they make a game that doesn't sell well, or after they run their own franchise into the ground with yearly iterations that change nothing. It's disturbingly common in fact. And never has any one blamed used game sales that I know of. Used game sales don't put developers out of business, just like piracy doesn't put them out of business.

But what we should really be talking about here I think is not whether used game sales are bad, but how developers and publishers could take advantage of price discrimination by customers in a way that doesn't totally undermine people's right to sell their games second hand. And honestly, one way would be to just lower the damn prices of their games after launch. A game has what? Maybe a 3 month shelf life where most of their sales happen. Yet I constantly see games still selling for full price six months or a year later. Well after most people have stopped buying them, used or otherwise. Why not drop the price $10 after three months or whenever sales dramatically slow? And they can continue to drop the price as they see fit based on sales until they get to around $20 or so. If this was common practice, you might see people who want the game and usually buy it used prefer to wait a bit and get a brand new copy cheaper, and in the meantime, the people who would be willing to pay $60 to play it right away are still going to be willing to do that. You might even get some new customers who wouldn't want to pay $60, or pay $5 less for a used copy because you dropped the price while the game was still relatively fresh in people's minds.

Offering pre-order discounts or bonuses can also be a good way to increase new sales.

But my general point is that there are customers willing to discriminate on price, but game companies do nothing to try and get them. Instead they'd rather try and make them pay an extra $10 or $15 to unlock part of their game. I'd say this will actually do more to piss these customers off and make them think twice about buying a game from you again rather than help the bottom line. They might be better off in the short term, but you need to be careful about anything that can be seen as antagonizing or ripping off your fans.

 

[VladG]

And then there is the matter of circulation and exposure. Let's say ten years from now, someone buys a used copy of RAGE on the cheap, near the end of the Xbox 9001's lifespan; they take it home, play it, and find that there are sections of the game which are made out clearly to be accessible, are not actually accessible. The person then finds out that they needed DLC from the now-dead Xbox 360 Marketplace in order to access the content. That content has now officially been killed. Nobody will ever be able to experience what was locked out, as most copies are now deep in the cycle of resales. Then, when this person finds out that RAGE 55 is coming out, will they be inclined to play it at all, when they know that the creators of the series willingly locked him out of content?

And then there is the case of "Give them an inch...". If this practice of locking-out content from people is accepted as valid now, where does it stop? Why not lock out portions of the game for people who don't buy the special edition? Why not, instead of making the content free DLC for new copies, make it cheaper DLC for new copies? This strategy of punishing used buyers instead of rewarding new buyers is another testing of the water. We've already seen people accept games being shipped broken, and seen that people are willing to pay for content that is already on the disc, so why not go even further? In a world where so much profiteering and "Ending is better than mending" philosophy is spread in business, people who let those who should be providing us, the consumer, with services instead punish us for performing completely legal transactions outside the parameters they want, is deeply disheartening.

Well, the only way to avoid the "Give them an inch" problem is for consumers to take a stand. I'm fairly certain that when a developer goes too far with such practices sales will tank and they will lose money, prompting them not to repeat the offence. We can only hope though that most consumers are mature enough to spot and respond to a potential problem in time.

I'm thinking that current technology can help avoid the problem of not being able to unlock the content after a long time has passed. Cloud computing seems to be the future and storage space is getting ever cheaper, so I'd think that in 10 years we will still have access to everything we do now, exactly because it avoids your proposed problem. There are already people starting to work in that direction (see Good old Games).

But we've seen in other industries that people are willing to pay to be fucked. Have you ever heard of "Planned Obsolescence"? There was a day where you could, with occasional maintenance, have a device for decades upon decades, where nowadays most dogs can even outlive a washing machine or a fridge.

It's the same over-arching problem that leads Americans to support the Republican Party's economic policy: Under the guise of "Freedom" and "Justice", you can manipulate people into believing anything, even that corporations have more right to control what you do than the government does.

Problem is people aren't just willing to be fucked, they are happy to pay to be fucked. The "planned obsolescence" thing comes from the big economic expansion of the last decades when people could afford to buy the latest models anyway, and the old ones would only last a fraction of their lifetime because of that anyway. Manufacturers learned to take advantage of that. Technically a device that lasts less is cheaper than one build to last long, so basically what most people only saw was stuff getting cheaper, and not it getting less durable as well because so often it would never get to that point anyway.

 

[Brandon237]

You have my undying, slightly sticky (don't think about it) respect for that post. And the guy you quoted, good to him too.

The games industry hates capitalism. They do their very best to avoid playing by the same rules as every other industry. Once their product is out of their grip, they have their cash, move on, make more copies and make the deal better. Don't try and scrape double money on every copy, because that is being a pig. You are NOT special gaming, get over it, learn to play like movies and music and even furniture, make the product good, affordable and entice more people to enter the field of gaming, as opposed to scaring them off with this bull.

So I'm not the only one that sees they only like the distinction "Like every form of media" when it serves them well (A la the First Amendment) but detests it when it comes to the matter of consumer rights?

As I've said before, telling part of your playerbase "We think you are bad as pirates" is not a smart business tactic.

Look at it this way: I got Mass Effect 1 used because it was only $20. It got me hooked on Bioware games. ME2, DA:O, DA:2? All new purchases. But, oh wait, I guess my first action was as bad as piracy. Even though they saw upwards of $200 from me later which may not have existed otherwise.

No, you are not, they ,make it so blatantly obvious that you couldn't be, the gaming industry likely has at least two legal battles going on right now for each side of the point. One is trying to screw the consumer in a way no other industry would even consider, and the other is asking for the same benefits as every other industry. Bloody hypocrites, they can't have it both ways!

Same here, sales and second hand stuff got me to buy games I would never consider buying otherwise. My friend gave me Crysis 1 as a second hand gift, and now I have bought every game in the series. And it is not an uncommon phenomenon.

 

[WaruTaru]

well for one pirating games is illegal, some games are not worth buying new but are perfectly fine games for the cheaper used price.

why buy a game if you can download it for free? cause its the right thing to do, you can get lots of things for free but people dont cause its wrong or you will get punished. why buy a car when you can get one for free with a brick to the window?

thats like saying libaries should all be burnt to the ground cause it doesnt benefit the writers of the books cause 100s of people read the books with out buying.

i just dont understand why people think used games are bad. quit qqing and live with a 2nd hand market.

So you won't do it if its something illegal? Please, have a look at those cases I've mentioned. What you are doing can be illegal too. How do you like that now?

Since buying second-hand games could be illegal, you should do the right thing and buy games first-hand. After all, legality is important to you, yes?

Again, read my posts, specifically about self-destructing e-books.

Because you are screwing the honest developers, who made your damn game.

 

[Sig-ma]

Many of you are very dense. I almost feel bad for your naive grasp on the whole situation.

1) Video games are not subject to the same quality control measures that most other products have. All too often people (including myself) purchase games that don't work as advertised or are fundamentally broken due to bugs or poor port jobs. More often than that, games are ridiculously over-hyped and simply aren't as much fun as you thought they'd be. If any of these is the case, it is well within their rights for a refund, replacement or to sell it (as applicable). When I purchase a game for full price, my expectations are A) it will work and B) it will serve its purpose as a game (be fun to play). I haven't purchased a new game in quite a while that achieved both of these.

2) "Always-on" is not really a measure to combat piracy. Blizzard has taken their World of Warcraft business model and applied it to Diablo 3 because it is highly profitable as an advertisement medium to sell trinkets and whatever else. This is the exact same reason why Team Fortress 2 recently became free. Valve realized they were making more money from selling hats and whatever than from the game itself, so it is actually better business to make that medium free so more people can be subjected to advertisements for whatever in-game item. The fundamental problem with this is they are forcing you into a model where you have ABSOLUTELY no rights as a consumer, despite the money you spend, where there is no guarantee your full price game will even exist the next day and forcing restrictive requirements and advertisements upon you simply to play a single-player game. Your only alternative is simply not to purchase it. At this point I don't even care how fun Diablo 3 is (it will probably be mediocre)-- I won't purchase it simply because I, as a consumer, shouldn't have to register and jump through their hoops and be bombarded with advertisements for their shitty in-game cape I don't want, especially since I already dropped full price for the game and the right to experience it.

3) The used car analogy is appropriate, no matter what kind of spin you people attempt to place it on. The key argument is precisely the same... Each time someone buys used, we (the publisher) are losing a sale. This thinking is entirely false as again, independent research has PROVEN most people who purchased a game used for $30 or whatever, would NOT have purchased it new for full price if it were the only alternative. The actual dollar amounts or comparison between the two items as commodities does not matter. Game publishers are basing their argument off of the actual belief I would have purchased their crappy new game for $60 IF there hadn't been the same thing sitting there used for $40. They seem to not understand that games range between awesome to absolute shit and not everyone will want to spend $60 (the asking price for any new game, regardless of what it is) to find out what their own subjective opinion on it ends up being.

4) In the same sense, piracy only costs most game companies about 1% of their revenue, despite their claims of extremely high piracy rate. Why? Again, most people wouldn't have purchased the game anyway. If any of you know any people who pirate games, ask them why they do it. Guaranteed most of the time they proclaim it's because I don't have the money for it or it isn't worth the asking price. If you sit there and argue that piracy is wrong with them until you're blue in the face and they end up agreeing with you, they're not going to start purchasing all of their games brand new. They will either not buy at all or strictly buy used (or wait for the price to come down).

Those of you against used buying, rental or incapable of understanding the basic mentality of a consumer participating in any of those three obviously don't have a grasp on how the real world is. I'm sure many of you enjoy the convenience of always-on internet and don't mind being tethered to your PC for the entire duration of your game-playing experience but many people do not have said luxuries or like their ability to play away from home.

The more policies, restrictions and DRM they place on games lowers the abilities in which people can experience the game and thus, SHOULD lower the asking price compared to prior standards. Since that is obviously not going to happen I only expect piracy to increase. I'm sure game companies understand this as well but they don't care because they're going to make hundreds if not thousands of dollars off of an in-game item that took them all of 4 hours to create, or was created intended for the original release and then held back last minute.

 

[WaruTaru]

4) In the same sense, piracy only costs most game companies about 1% of their revenue, despite their claims of extremely high piracy rate.

Source please. I've been scouring the internet with Google to no avail. Where exactly are you pulling your 1% from?

 

[Fidelias]

Gamestop didn't make the game, but it does own the copy it's trying to sell. It's the games industry that thinks its entitled to a cut of the sale of something they don't even own; why exactly am I being accused of entitlement issues, and not them?

Which is why it's legal to sell used games, but not why it's morally right.

Hypothetical situation time:

Say New Game X came out tomorrow.
Average consumer Y decides that he really wants that game. So he goes to gamestop the day after it comes out. He sees the game new for 60$. He then sees next to it, the game used for 55$. Average Consumer Y is a thrifty shopper so instead he buys the used copy of the game. He still enjoys the full game, same quality, but now the portions from his purchase didn't go to the people who made the game, didn't go to the publishers who published it. It went to Gamestop. If Gamestop didn't offer used games sales he would have payed the full 60$ and all of that money would have gone right to the publisher/developer. Gamestop deprived New Game X of a sale because of it's used game sales.

You know, it's business 101 to cater to the CONSUMER, not have the consumer cater to you.

How do you think Gamestop gets the games? They buy them, from the developer. Even without the pre-purchases, the developer already makes a profit. So this entire argument about, "Oh noes, we have to support the game industry before they DIE!!!" is completely invalid.

Are you really saying that it's immoral for the consumer to save money? That's what we're supposed to do, and if the game developers can't compete with that, they're doing something terribly wrong.

 

[Bearjing]

You know, it's business 101 to cater to the CONSUMER, not have the consumer cater to you.

How do you think Gamestop gets the games? They buy them, from the developer. Even without the pre-purchases, the developer already makes a profit. So this entire argument about, "Oh noes, we have to support the game industry before they DIE!!!" is completely invalid.

Are you really saying that it's immoral for the consumer to save money? That's what we're supposed to do, and if the game developers can't compete with that, they're doing something terribly wrong.

Why stop at used games? Why not just go pirate it. At some point someone bought the game that was pirated so the company saw money and the "consumer" saves even more money!!

/sarcasm off

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Funny stuff.

"Reversal rates have no meaning whatsoever," said Chemerinsky. "If the Supreme Court overrules the 9th Circuit, it doesn't mean that the 9th Circuit was wrong and the Supreme Court was right. It means the Supreme Court had the last word."

The answer is that they are goods, just like books are. The original ruling of Vernor V. Autodesk clearly said that, claiming (rightfully) that selling a hard copy of a piece of software represented selling a hard copy of a piece of software, not transferring a license. Digital distribution has a logical leg to stand on when claiming that they're only selling a license. Companies that sell their products through brick and mortar stores do not, and the district court recognized that; the 9th circuit seems to like businesses more than consumers for some reason, at least when it comes to shrink wrap contracts. Also, the supreme court has a tendency to overturn decisions that specifically come from that court: <link=http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/18/local/la-me-ninth-circuit-scorecard-20110718/2>source.

Edit: Huh, it's weird. The 9th circuit has a reputation as a highly liberal court (meaning they should be highly pro-consumer, not pro-business), but going back through the decisions on shrink wrap contracts, just about all of the ones that were in favor of shrink wrap contracts went through the 9th circuit, while the ones that were against it were either at the district level, or in another circuit. It will be interesting to see what happens if and when these cases make it to the supreme court.

Edit: Oh, also, in the specific examples you gave, what you are claiming is significantly changing the product, and if a company did that after someone had already purchased their product, there would be hell to pay. Even if you were to sell them like that, they would be a different product than the initial one, and would have to be sold differently. But they would still be products, not services.

OT: Which brings the case to the 9th Circuit. The reversals are mostly criminals cases, which the 9th Circuit are being way too lenient (Or so the Supreme Courts say). The Supreme Court usually support large corporations in corporate cases, which means they are pro-corporations. The ruling of Vernor v Autodesk by the 9th Circuit would have been upheld in the Supreme Court if the case went up there. What they are doing is following precedent of previous cases. If the law is decided, there is no reason for them to mess it up until some major law points come around forcing them to reconsider.

How am I significantly changing the product? A book is "words printed on paper", music is "something you listen to", movies "something you watch" and games "codes and arts and sound on a disc". You are still getting the content that you paid for. Just like IKEA furniture, you are buying a chair, but the chair doesn't come in chair-shapes. They come in a box, broken down into pieces. Same principle, no?

The 9th circuit is generally liberal, but they have a very conservative view on copyright, which is unsurprising when you consider that the court is located in San Francisco. The other circuit courts, as well as their own district courts, tend to rule the exact opposite way, and having read the decision, the reasoning was poor to say the least. By the way, the 2nd circuit in particular had a ruling (Specht V. Netscape) to the opposite effect, and it was during Justice Sotomayor's tenure on that court. You may recognize her as one of the Obama appointees to the Supreme Court. Vernor V. Autodesk was a terrible ruling, and I'll be surprised if it survives the En Banc appeal, let alone an appeal to the Supreme court.

As for your argument about books being the same either way, regardless of the order of words? Alright, mr. smart butt, let's put it this way: a book is just words on paper organized in a specific way. It's still a product, the same way just about any decent chair that doesn't come from Ikea isn't going to be a box of parts when you get it -- and even if they all were, Ikea gives instructions for putting it together. If your hypothetical book came with that, it would be in order anyway -- the instructions would be in the right order, and would effectively be the novel.

 

[HappyCastor]

The developer still gets the money they need because someone already bought the game for it to be used. So no, it's not wrong, and I assure you it isn't pirating. It's the game retailers fault because they sell used games, not the consumer who is getting the same game for less. No one should be expected to pay full price for a game when they can get it for 10 or so dollars.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

That's a problem, actually. I'm guilty of having a fairly large Steam account (mainly because the sales are even cheaper than buying used, and I don't mind getting a rental when I'm clearly paying for one anyway), but it occasionally gives me problems, even though I live in a part of the country that gets relatively good internet. Every time I go on vacation or otherwise wind up out of reach of the internet, Steam gives me tons of problems. Even offline mode only works when it wants to -- half the time it tells me it can't connect to the network, so I can't play my offline game in offline mode. I'm one of the lucky ones; there are huge swaths of this country -- one of the biggest first world countries in existence -- that still can't get high speed internet. Heck, there are portions of the country (mainly out west) that have a hard time even getting phone lines, let alone decent internet. We're still a very long way off from digital distribution being a viable release method on its own, without support from hard copies.

But that is the destination all indie devs will eventually reach. Retail just doesn't do them justice. Big, giant publishers that rely on their franchises dominate the shelve space. Big, giant publishers do not like risks, especially if said risk costs 30 million per pop. You end up with those publishers leaning heavily on their successful franchise, which means you are buying and playing the same game with a bit of a new twist for each new release.

True, those without phone line and internet will not be able to play games that require constant connection. But if they don't have phone line and internet, a game is the least of their concern. As for you not being able to play on Offline mode, grab a hand held They'll eventually sort out their bugs in the future (hopefully).

Have you ever in your life been in an area so rural that phone and internet is difficult to get? It's not a question of being poor -- quite the contrary, to live that far out full time takes a fair chunk of change. It's just that the physical reality of living in the middle of nowhere is that it's difficult to run lines for certain modern conveniences that we take for granted in first world countries. What you're saying is, if you've got power but the internet and phones aren't available because there aren't enough people in your area for the telecom companies to bother to run the lines, you shouldn't be worried about your own entertainment? Cabin fever would set in very, very quickly. There is nothing wrong with wanting to use your electricity to do something that, logically, should only require electricity, not phone or internet.

As for the indie devs, yes, they probably will be mostly DD only, but in their case it's because the barrier to entry is so low online that a single person with no track record can get published -- they can even publish themselves, if they want. If they had the money to do it, you can bet every last one of them would have copies on the shelf at Walmart, because it would do nothing but make them money.

 

[WaruTaru]

The 9th circuit is generally liberal, but they have a very conservative view on copyright, which is unsurprising when you consider that the court is located in San Francisco. The other circuit courts, as well as their own district courts, tend to rule the exact opposite way, and having read the decision, the reasoning was poor to say the least. By the way, the 2nd circuit in particular had a ruling (Specht V. Netscape) to the opposite effect, and it was during Justice Sotomayor's tenure on that court. You may recognize her as one of the Obama appointees to the Supreme Court. Vernor V. Autodesk was a terrible ruling, and I'll be surprised if it survives the En Banc appeal, let alone an appeal to the Supreme court.

As for your argument about books being the same either way, regardless of the order of words? Alright, mr. smart butt, let's put it this way: a book is just words on paper organized in a specific way. It's still a product, the same way just about any decent chair that doesn't come from Ikea isn't going to be a box of parts when you get it -- and even if they all were, Ikea gives instructions for putting it together. If your hypothetical book came with that, it would be in order anyway -- the instructions would be in the right order, and would effectively be the novel.

There is a technical difference between Specht v Netscape and the cases I've cited. In Specht the guy was claiming that he did not see the agreement before downloading the software (because it was out of sight), and there was no pop-up box saying "I Agree" that he needs to click before downloading. That means the application of the law is restricted to users who have no knowledge of an agreement and was not required to click "I Agree" before he gets his stuff. The other two cases specifically said the person had knowledge of the terms of use for their product and blatantly disregard it. And no, you won't. En Banc or not, the ruling stands.

So you agree the value is placed on the organization of the content, and not "the words on paper"? You want me to organize it in a nice way so you can read it sanely, yes? The words and the paper doesn't matter (which is the goods you are paying for). At all. What you truly want is the story, yes? It took a lot of effort to organize them, so I expect payment for my word-organizing service. If you refuse, I'll still be nice and mark each word with a number, and send along the instructions: "Follow the numbers from 1 to 100,000 to get your story". Ultimately you are still getting your story. Its just a bit more uncomfortable and irritating.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

The 9th circuit is generally liberal, but they have a very conservative view on copyright, which is unsurprising when you consider that the court is located in San Francisco. The other circuit courts, as well as their own district courts, tend to rule the exact opposite way, and having read the decision, the reasoning was poor to say the least. By the way, the 2nd circuit in particular had a ruling (Specht V. Netscape) to the opposite effect, and it was during Justice Sotomayor's tenure on that court. You may recognize her as one of the Obama appointees to the Supreme Court. Vernor V. Autodesk was a terrible ruling, and I'll be surprised if it survives the En Banc appeal, let alone an appeal to the Supreme court.

As for your argument about books being the same either way, regardless of the order of words? Alright, mr. smart butt, let's put it this way: a book is just words on paper organized in a specific way. It's still a product, the same way just about any decent chair that doesn't come from Ikea isn't going to be a box of parts when you get it -- and even if they all were, Ikea gives instructions for putting it together. If your hypothetical book came with that, it would be in order anyway -- the instructions would be in the right order, and would effectively be the novel.

There is a technical difference between Specht v Netscape and the cases I've cited. In Specht the guy was claiming that he did not see the agreement before downloading the software (because it was out of sight), and there was no pop-up box saying "I Agree" that he needs to click before downloading. That means the application of the law is restricted to users who have no knowledge of an agreement and was not required to click "I Agree" before he gets his stuff. The other two cases specifically said the person had knowledge of the terms of use for their product and blatantly disregard it. And no, you won't. En Banc or not, the ruling stands.

So you agree the value is placed on the organization of the content, and not "the words on paper"? You want me to organize it in a nice way so you can read it sanely, yes? The words and the paper doesn't matter (which is the goods you are paying for). At all. What you truly want is the story, yes? It took a lot of effort to organize them, so I expect payment for my word-organizing service. If you refuse, I'll still be nice and mark each word with a number, and send along the instructions: "Follow the numbers from 1 to 100,000 to get your story". Ultimately you are still getting your story. Its just a bit more uncomfortable and irritating.

*sigh* the order of the words on the paper is a part of the product, but it is not the only part. I'd like a book with an intact cover and no questionable stains, too. Besides, you're still laboring under the delusion that selling copyrighted material is about licensing the copyright. It's not. It's about the right to make and sell copies. Heck, the right of first sale first came into being because a book publisher tried to overstep the bounds provided by copyright law; game companies are trying to do just this, and they're doing it using some psuedo-legal mumbo jumbo that, if the courts had any sense, would not fly.

 

[WaruTaru]

Have you ever in your life been in an area so rural that phone and internet is difficult to get? It's not a question of being poor -- quite the contrary, to live that far out full time takes a fair chunk of change. It's just that the physical reality of living in the middle of nowhere is that it's difficult to run lines for certain modern conveniences that we take for granted in first world countries. What you're saying is, if you've got power but the internet and phones aren't available because there aren't enough people in your area for the telecom companies to bother to run the lines, you shouldn't be worried about your own entertainment? Cabin fever would set in very, very quickly. There is nothing wrong with wanting to use your electricity to do something that, logically, should only require electricity, not phone or internet.

As for the indie devs, yes, they probably will be mostly DD only, but in their case it's because the barrier to entry is so low online that a single person with no track record can get published -- they can even publish themselves, if they want. If they had the money to do it, you can bet every last one of them would have copies on the shelf at Walmart, because it would do nothing but make them money.

Does camping count?

OT: You still have books, films and music. And I really can't sympathize with choosing to live in isolation. Maybe its because I don't know people who have that much money. Actually, if you have that much dough, we wouldn't be discussing it here in the first place. You'll probably be one of those who pre-order stuff and buy the Gold/Special Edition games and treat them as collector items. Price won't be a factor for you.

Barrier to entry is important, but so is retaining their IP rights. If the went off and join a publisher, they lose that IP and can never touch it again (barring a few exceptions). Then again, it takes a long, long time for one-man indies to make a $60 game. I don't think they can even release the game within the console's lifespan. And that is assuming they started development on the day the new console is released. I seriously can't buy in to that, but I do hope they are successful if they make good games.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Have you ever in your life been in an area so rural that phone and internet is difficult to get? It's not a question of being poor -- quite the contrary, to live that far out full time takes a fair chunk of change. It's just that the physical reality of living in the middle of nowhere is that it's difficult to run lines for certain modern conveniences that we take for granted in first world countries. What you're saying is, if you've got power but the internet and phones aren't available because there aren't enough people in your area for the telecom companies to bother to run the lines, you shouldn't be worried about your own entertainment? Cabin fever would set in very, very quickly. There is nothing wrong with wanting to use your electricity to do something that, logically, should only require electricity, not phone or internet.

As for the indie devs, yes, they probably will be mostly DD only, but in their case it's because the barrier to entry is so low online that a single person with no track record can get published -- they can even publish themselves, if they want. If they had the money to do it, you can bet every last one of them would have copies on the shelf at Walmart, because it would do nothing but make them money.

Does camping count?

OT: You still have books, films and music. And I really can't sympathize with choosing to live in isolation. Maybe its because I don't know people who have that much money. Actually, if you have that much dough, we wouldn't be discussing it here in the first place. You'll probably be one of those who pre-order stuff and buy the Gold/Special Edition games and treat them as collector items. Price won't be a factor for you.

Barrier to entry is important, but so is retaining their IP rights. If the went off and join a publisher, they lose that IP and can never touch it again (barring a few exceptions). Then again, it takes a long, long time for one-man indies to make a $60 game. I don't think they can even release the game within the console's lifespan. And that is assuming they started development on the day the new console is released. I seriously can't buy in to that, but I do hope they are successful if they make good games.

So you have no sympathy for, say, a farmer who lives out in the middle of nowhere by necessity, can't get internet, but still wants to play a videogame that he, as you pointed out, probably paid full price for in the first place? Because DRM hurts the paying customer, not the pirates, who strip it out before they do anything else.

As for one man indies making a $60 game, where does that come into play at all? You do realize that there is a $10 price point for low end PC games, right? They're sold in a jewel case with very little else in the way of packaging, and they contain the game and not much else. Popcap sells their stuff like that all the time, as did a lot of AAA publishers back in the days when games dropped significantly after they had been out for a year or two. Half off is nothing; when I was a kid (not all that long ago) I could buy a brand new AAA game that had been out for a year or so for $10, and that $10 was almost pure profit for the publisher and the dev, because the game had already paid for itself at the $40 price point several times over.