Digital Ownership: Why we lost today

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kordan11

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Jul 31, 2008
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Yes, that's exactly what happened at Valve. They heard about the sharing scheme at E3, and said 'Hey cool, we can do that', then hacked together a sharing backbone and threw it in the beta...

Or, you know, they've been planning this for a very long time because it makes sense for their platform, and people at MS just happened to have the same idea. So the fact that MS backed down on it has absolutely no impact on Valve's plans.
 

nevarran

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Apr 6, 2010
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RicoADF said:
Your level of ignorance is laughable. People have the right to owning the games they buy, just because your happy to throw away your rights doesn't mean others are. It's not the digital that was the issue, it's how they were trying to execute the idea. Great ideas, bad execution.
Moving to digital only, would've raised discussions about the issue of ownership, sharing, re-selling and everything else.
The execution was the same as Steam, with added internet check every 24 hours, because of the sharing system.
Laugh all you want, you'll have 10 more years to do so.
 

josemlopes

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Jun 9, 2008
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BlackMageBob said:
I'm really disappointed about this too. Digital Rights Management would've meant something besides archaic restrictions.

Looks like Steam is going to pick up the torch, though. PC Gaming Master-race, lighting the way yet again.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=595606
So now its good, when Microsoft was planning on doing it no one gave a fuck or wanted it. I dont care much for the new Xbox but at least give credit to the right people.
 

Doom972

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Digital licensing of games as an alternative to owning physical copies works great for the PC due to the consistent backwards-compatibility. There's always a way to run old games on the PC properly. I'm not a console gamer, but I know that if I was, I wouldn't want to take the chance of paying for a digital copy that may not be available once a new console comes out. I doubt that the console makers would be willing to keep the XBLA or the PSN of this generation available for as long as they exist.
 

J Tyran

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LeenaV said:
"I don't think owning a physical copy of a game automatically means that you own the actual game... unless it states so on the end-user license agreement."

I understand that this site has a lot of worldwide users, so what I say may not be applicable for everyone, but in the United States at least, for the last century the law has said that when you buy something, you now own it, and the person or company that sold it to you can't tell you that you can't sell it, lend it, or give it away to someone else. And since until recently all games came on physical media, you did indeed own that copy of the game.

It's called the First Sale Doctrine, and it's stuck in the craw of media companies for a long time. They've been trying to get around it by muddying the waters with purely digital copies, but evidently a lot of people decided that they weren't going to stand for it.
First sale doctrine doesn't apply [http://www.siia.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=339&Itemid=352] to software, games are software. Gamers have no "rights" or legal recourse over used games, if publishers start to block them first sale doctrine cannot stop it.

The only thing first sale doctrine applies to in this case is the physical media itself and any boxes it came in, you own that but the software itself is only licensed.
 

RicoADF

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Jun 2, 2009
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nevarran said:
RicoADF said:
Your level of ignorance is laughable. People have the right to owning the games they buy, just because your happy to throw away your rights doesn't mean others are. It's not the digital that was the issue, it's how they were trying to execute the idea. Great ideas, bad execution.
Moving to digital only, would've raised discussions about the issue of ownership, sharing, re-selling and everything else.
The execution was the same as Steam, with added internet check every 24 hours, because of the sharing system.
Laugh all you want, you'll have 10 more years to do so.
Digital only will never happen, that's the joke. Fact is too many people like buying physical copies, heck I have more games than I can count that's physical, I also have over 600 games on steam so I have no issues with having digital games. The thing with steam is that I had a choice on what I bought there, the Xbox wanted to make it mandatory. Steam also allows me to play offline, Xbox did not plan to allow that. Games I get on steam are usually cheap ones, games I don't know or have alot of interest in and will get on a sale. Games I get physically are ones that I love, such as Command and Conquer. Their a collectors item and if servers go down they still work. Also on PC even steam games have the advantage that if somehow they went down you can bet that patches for the games would be out within a few days, official or not.

Digital is not all roses, like anything it's got good and bad sides, the best is to have both so people can choose how they want to buy their products. To say that 'only digital is the future' is basically saying "fuck you" to anyone that prefers to purchase their games in a different way to you. Which is both arrogant and selfish.

J Tyran said:
First sale doctrine doesn't apply [http://www.siia.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=339&Itemid=352] to software, games are software. Gamers have no "rights" or legal recourse over used games, if publishers start to block them first sale doctrine cannot stop it.

The only thing first sale doctrine applies to in this case is the physical media itself and any boxes it came in, you own that but the software itself is only licensed.
That depends on what country you live in, the EU has declared that yes first sale doctrine (or whatever they call it) does include gaming (digital or otherwise). Most nations have similar laws. The US may not, I'm not certain.
 

Scars Unseen

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May 7, 2009
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Ownership is not a gift to be granted to the unwashed masses by magnanimous corporate entities. It is a right recognized(at least in the US) by the government as defined(again, in the US) by our Constitution. If digital property is to be afforded the same consideration as physical property, it must be recognized by the same. This is a matter for the legislative and judicial branches of our government, not an industrial giant in Redmond.
 

holy_secret

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Nov 2, 2009
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What really fascinates me is how well the Xbone defendenders explain the ideas of the always-online and DRM thingies.
I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm actually agreeing and saying "hmm...that actually doesn't sound half bad".

But here's my question. Why the heck couldn't Microsoft have given us this kind, level-headed and easy to understand explanation of what this always-online was exactly?

So yeah. Microsoft still dropped the ball on this one.
 

nevarran

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Apr 6, 2010
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RicoADF said:
Digital only will never happen, that's the joke. Fact is too many people like buying physical copies, heck I have more games than I can count that's physical, I also have over 600 games on steam so I have no issues with having digital games. The thing with steam is that I had a choice on what I bought there, the Xbox wanted to make it mandatory. Steam also allows me to play offline, Xbox did not plan to allow that. Games I get on steam are usually cheap ones, games I don't know or have alot of interest in and will get on a sale. Games I get physically are ones that I love, such as Command and Conquer. Their a collectors item and if servers go down they still work. Also on PC even steam games have the advantage that if somehow they went down you can bet that patches for the games would be out within a few days, official or not.

Digital is not all roses, like anything it's got good and bad sides, the best is to have both so people can choose how they want to buy their products. To say that 'only digital is the future' is basically saying "fuck you" to anyone that prefers to purchase their games in a different way to you. Which is both arrogant and selfish.
I understand you. I'm pretty much like you, regarding my favorite games. But you cannot deny what a huge waste of resources that is. You're building a fancy case for this essentially digital content, that may as well be transferred perfectly with 0s and 1s.
And MS were not preventing physical copies. They were just making them less appealing. You could share games (with whatever limitations their system had), but you share the digital thing, not the disc.
Maybe digital only is not such a great thing, as I'm imagining it. But having the retailers make the rules of the game, is crap in my book.

The 24 hours check, I have no idea how exactly was it supposed to work. But it was clearly made because of the digital shading system. Without it, I could share my game with 10 people, they all go offline and we all play simultaneously. Such thing is obviously not happening. And sadly the only way to prevent it, is by checking frequently, who's playing the game. If you have a better ideas, feel free to share with us.

holy_secret said:
Why the heck couldn't Microsoft have given us this kind, level-headed and easy to understand explanation of what this always-online was exactly?
Because they're fucking morons, that's why!
 

Terramax

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Jan 11, 2008
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Digital sales are a completely different ball game from physical copies. People need to stop comparing them as the exact same thing.

If you want to own a game, where you can hold it in your hand, store it, and resell it if you don't want it, retail is the way to go.

If you don't want something physical, preferring it to be stored on a memory card or console, then use digital, with the awareness that you can't resell.

If you've a problem with digital not being able to be resold, just refuse to buy that way.

As for me, I prefer digital download, but I expect a cheaper price to reflect the lack of physical media that I can hold onto, and resell.

That business model is perfectly fine as it is. The only concern there should be is that games are at the right price to reflect which of the two methods you choose from.
 

nevarran

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Terramax said:
Digital sales are a completely different ball game from physical copies. People need to stop comparing them as the exact same thing.

If you want to own a game, where you can hold it in your hand, store it, and resell it if you don't want it, retail is the way to go.

If you don't want something physical, preferring it to be stored on a memory card or console, then use digital, with the awareness that you can't resell.

If you've a problem with digital not being able to be resold, just refuse to buy that way.
That's the mentality, I feel needs to e changed. No offense, mate, I just thing you're wrong.
Retail game, or digital distributed game, it's the same thing. The only difference is that one of them is stored on a DVD/BR the other one on HDD/SSD.
Is a 10 dollar bill more special, than 10 dollars in a bank account?

That's why people ignore the rights of the digital customers. Because they think it's something different.
"Stop whining, if you want rights, go buy from Gamestop!"
Nah, that's bull-shit!
 

SNCommand

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Aug 29, 2011
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Microsoft was trying to enforce digital distribution rules to physical copies, the thing is that by making physical copies what they have always been should in no way affect their digital sales system, but instead they get pissy and say "Nope, now we're taking away all those features"

It's almost like Microsoft believe there's no way for a console to cater to both physical and digital copies even though PC and consoles has done it for years, and now they're acting like a little child because the consumers rejected the idea of removing physical ownership out of the equation
 

SecondPrize

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Aircross said:
I don't think owning a physical copy of a game automatically means that you own the actual game...

...unless it states so on the end-user license agreement.
In practice it does. Everyone involved has acted as if physical disks or cartridges have the same first sale rights as other copyrighted material since the first consoles. They talk about licenses in their tos and eula, but license isn't a magic word which takes our rights away, not when we actually practice those rights with the things and they don't bring it to court.
 

Lil devils x_v1legacy

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As far as consoles are concerned you cannot sell digital, but I thought that on the PC with online games, for example, people just sold their account for individual games instead. This doesn't work well for games linked to services such as Steam, but for those who just play them without such services, they sell their accounts all the time when they don't wish to play them anymore.
 

Terramax

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nevarran said:
That's the mentality, I feel needs to e changed. No offense, mate, I just thing you're wrong.
Retail game, or digital distributed game, it's the same thing. The only difference is that one of them is stored on a DVD/BR the other one on HDD/SSD.
Is a 10 dollar bill more special, than 10 dollars in a bank account?

That's why people ignore the rights of the digital customers. Because they think it's something different.
"Stop whining, if you want rights, go buy from Gamestop!"
Nah, that's bull-shit!
With digital distribution, there is nothing to resell. I mean, technically you could resell data, but really, what you'd be doing is transferring or duplicating. You're not handing over the exact same product. You're paying for just the raw information, nothing physical to sell.

You say "The only difference..." but that's a BIG, HUGE difference, as far as I'm concerned.
 

Sack of Cheese

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machblast said:
I like physical games. I like booklets, I like having a shelf full of them, I like collector's editions. I like cover art, I like being able to play games 20 years after the console has lost all support, and I like the obi that comes with imports of Saturn games. I like monolithic box sets with giant artbooks, I like metal boxes, I like posting pictures of my collection, and I like the feeling of getting a game in the mail or at the store.

I feel like it's kind of sad that people are going for digital-only in this day and age, when I far prefer owning physical copies of games.
Hear, hear. I love the sense of ownership, and displayed collection is always more eye pleasing than icons on your computer.
 

NoeL

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May 14, 2011
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I see no reason why Microsoft can't implement both systems simultaneously: if there's a disc in the drive, you can play the game - no restrictions, no bullshit. If you want to "borrow" a game from your "family member"'s library (or play a borrowed game), you need to authenticate online. If the owner of the game isn't online to verify the game has been borrowed, it can only be accessed for, say, 24 hours. If you want to keep playing after that, ring them up and tell them to log into XBL. This will revoke their access to the game offline (unless they put the disc in the tray), and will have to connect in order to play from the hard drive (which prevents their friends from borrowing).

You can install disc-based games to the hard drive and play without a disc if you register the game online, and those games will be available to you (even while offline) until someone else registers with that same disc (or it's borrowed by a family member - see above). The next time you come online, Microsoft will tell your system that the game has been registered by someone else and block access to it. Now, this opens the possibility of abuse, as someone can install a shit ton of games, sell the discs, and then stay offline indefinitely - never losing access to their games. HOWEVER, in doing so the user severely limits their own console, because not only can they never go online again (so no online multiplayer, no game sharing, no cloud computing, no library access on other consoles, etc.), but they won't be able to install any new games without risking losing their entire library. This makes the abusive strategy pretty unappealing, and will only come into play at the very end of the console's life cycle.

This setup gives users the best of both worlds. If you have no internet you can still buy physical discs and play them, but you won't be able to install them. If you lose internet access you'll still be able to play all the games you've installed, plus any new games as long as the disc is in the drive. If you want to take advantage of the online sharing scheme, then you have to put up with the DRM and play by the rules. Simple.