Why is it that the game industry is the only entertainment industry that's fucks people over?

[DoPo]

Before that, the music industry was on a roll to make discs and special editions that amounted for more than 20 $, plus making serious lobbying to outlaw those "damn pirates" and the technologies that were "killing the poor musicians and artists", like mps3.

And before that, the evil cassette tapes were the spawn of the Anti-give-us-lots-of-money-Christ until they were begrudgingly accepted. Then the discs were the new face of Satan. Then MP3s, as you mentioned. It's like the music industry (as in the giant amorphous lurking entity, as opposed to, like, the actual musicians) is run by a cabal of technophobic 100 year olds.

I'm afraid that if they had the power, they would just erase electricity from existence and undo all that chaos and nonsense that sprung up from the industrial revolution. They are a bit like the Auditors from Discworld, but those actually look good in comparison. And the Auditors brought the apocalypse. I'm not saying RIAA wants to destroy the world, but if they had their way...I'd actually prefer it to be destroyed and the whole thing to be started from scratch. I don't really like them, is what I'm getting at.

 

[RJ 17]

Look at the cost to go see a movie in a theater and compare it with the general quality of the product you receive at the movie theater. If you're someone like me who thinks most movies these days are "meh" at best, then that means at best you're spending around $30 (assuming you get popcorn and a soda) for a one-time-use "meh" product. I'd say that's fucking the consumers over.

How about a sporting event? Those qualify as entertainment. I'm not certain about other countries, but here if you go to a baseball game you have to pay far out the ass for a ticket, even further out the ass for a parking pass, and god help you if you get hungry or thirsty once you're inside the stadium.

They're all fucking us over one way or another. Pick your poison.

 

[DoPo]

Well, no. The gaming industry is not the worst by far. But it is the one with the highest concentration of retards. This is the one industry where a dev or publisher can come out and say "You'll need constant connection to our online servers that are as stable as a guy with vrolick syndrome in a rugby game to play this single player game" and people will still buy the game. And this translates into publishers not giving a single fuck about trying to be subtle. They can dream up any form of butt-fucking, implement it, drown in money and then mutter an "apology" from their caviar pools on theyr golden yachts before doing it again. And most gamers will simply say "more please". See, gaming isn't the worst, but it is the least restrained.

While I'm on the music track[footnote]ha-ha, pun[/footnote] remember how music CDs with DRM were shipped that actually borked your computer? It was Macs, specifically, I recall, but...

Well, I actually googled the incident to remind myself of the details. It wasn't just Macs

Epic/Sony's release of Celine Dion's A New Day Has Come audio disc this month, which included copy protection technology from Key2Audio, caused a furore after online sites reported that attempts to play the disc on a PC caused computers to crash.

The problem can be even more severe for Mac users.

Not only will the Celine Dion audio disc fail to play on new flat-screen iMacs but it will lock the CD tray and prevent the machine from been rebooted properly. This is not something users can fix themselves and means a trip to a dealer for repairs. An article on Apple's knowledge base explains the issue in more depth.

Macs were just royally fucked, as opposed to simply fucked. Quote taken from here [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/14/marker_pens_sticky_tape_crack/] but apparently the links there don't work any more.

Anyway - yeah...those were the times. Oh, and remember what else RIAA did around that time? They had a contest for cracking their DRM (not sure if it was this one or another version of it) and a computer security person cracked it. Because that was his job, and also the objective. He was then promptly sued [https://w2.eff.org/IP/DMCA/Felten_v_RIAA/] for proving both doing his job and doing what he was asked for (though not personally) in proving their DRM was completely stupid. And to top it off, RIAA did that other DRM then that was completely impenetrable...as long as you didn't posess an ordinary marker. Or electric tape. Basic tools: apparently the krytonite of DRM.

 

[hermes]

Before that, the music industry was on a roll to make discs and special editions that amounted for more than 20 $, plus making serious lobbying to outlaw those "damn pirates" and the technologies that were "killing the poor musicians and artists", like mps3.

And before that, the evil cassette tapes were the spawn of the Anti-give-us-lots-of-money-Christ until they were begrudgingly accepted. Then the discs were the new face of Satan. Then MP3s, as you mentioned. It's like the music industry (as in the giant amorphous lurking entity, as opposed to, like, the actual musicians) is run by a cabal of technophobic 100 year olds.

I'm afraid that if they had the power, they would just erase electricity from existence and undo all that chaos and nonsense that sprung up from the industrial revolution. They are a bit like the Auditors from Discworld, but those actually look good in comparison. And the Auditors brought the apocalypse. I'm not saying RIAA wants to destroy the world, but if they had their way...I'd actually prefer it to be destroyed and the whole thing to be started from scratch. I don't really like them, is what I'm getting at.

Exactly...
My point is, the video games industry is not particularly out there in terms of fucking over consumers, not even in the entertainment branch. The confusion on the part of the OP is likely because he is more familiar with ways they try to squeeze every single penny out of an IP than other industries policies.

 

[ChaosBorne]

hehehe....hahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

seriously?

all of those other entertainment mediums had to learn that lesson the hard way, the videogame industry is the youngest of the entertainment industries and it will have to learn that lesson the hard way as well, because people in business seem incapable of learning from other peoples mistakes or maybe they're just arrogant enough to think they'll not make the same mistakes right before making them.

also none of the entertainment industries have completely stopped screwing their customers so yeah.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's nowhere near the worst, but it is the youngest, and unlike the other creative mediums, gaming basically hit its major upswing in tandem with the rise of the internet; of course it's complicated.

I won't reiterate the comparisons already made (especially media parasites like the RIAA and MPAA), but I will say that I see a fair bit of wishful thinking and denial going on.

Gaming isn't in dire straits yet, but it's nowhere near as rosy as some in this topic are making it out to be.
It has problems, and most of them are getting worse each year.

Personally, I think 2014 was one of the worst years in gaming in my recent memory IN GENERAL.
I had to do more work to find good games, and was highly disappointed by certain games I really wanted to do well (*sigh* oh Starbound...you had such promise)

 

[G00N3R7883]

This problem seems exclusive to games (or AAA games I should say)

I agree that the games industry has shown itself to be completely untrustworthy, but it kind of annoys me when people have the attitude that AAA developers are total wallet draining scum but Indies are angels who always look after their customers best interests.

Just have a look at the amount of broken shit on Steam from small developers. They can be just as bad as the AAA's when they want to be.

 

[SoreWristed]

Well, the movie/literature argument is easily explained. It reaches a broader audience. Even the most remote, forest dwelling hippies have, at some point in their hummus-munching life, watched a movie or read a book. While you have to look around quite harder on any random street to find someone who would identify themselves as a gamer. And those mediums have been around for long enough to work out the kinks and learn what works and what doesn't.
This doesn't mean that they're free of the universal array of dick moves that plague our preferred form of media.

Stephen King's book series about The Dark Tower, were well written and epic. But if you read them now, you have to keep in mind that inbetween book 2 and 3, on a monumental cliffhanger, Stephen took a 15 year break on those books. 15 effin years in between books, so everyone could get rightfully angry or rightfully expecting book 3 to cure world cancer. I'm stating this to point to someone else who seems to be delaying their third part to a series for a similar timeperiod.

The Home Alone movie was good, everyone liked it, and it would have stood great on it's own if it weren't for capitalism to step in and force the writers and cast to do some more. I can name any number of games that have suffered because the developers decided they weren't rich enough and had to do a sequel.

For games specifically, the ability to patch things up after releasing it have made developers lazy. It means in nutshell, that an unrealistic release date can be met regardless. The moment the discs are on the trucks heading for stores, a moviemaker would open a case of beer, safe in the knowledge that his work is done and nothing can be done about any editing errors that have snuck in. Game devs however, can keep working on the game, because they can patch up any kinks that have "snuck in".

As for DLC, it's the game equivalent of E.T. lunch boxes and bedsheets. Okay, this analogy doesn't go very far, i'll grant you that. But devs seem to create DLC by hacking off a third of the completed game, and then releasing it at a price. It's an easy moneymaking process, and one that works aswell. You finish the game feeling unsatisfied after a story campaign that only lasted 8 hours or less, and they then dangle dessert in front of your face.

DLC is slowly turning into a subscription service for a game you already payed for. Season passes? I'm still waiting for the first dev to have their game uninstall if you don't buy the next map pack.

DRM issues are unique to games however. There aren't any movies that self combust if you burn them on a dvdv, or books that won't open unless you fax the writer your receipt, and thank god for that. While i don't encourage piracy, sometimes i can't help but feel that they are somewhat justified for doing so. So many games have review embargos that i too would like a chance to see an unadultered version of the game. The demo these devs provide are almost always doctored and polished so much harder than the final game, by which they basically defeat the purpose their demo had in the first place. And if they don't have an open review embargo, i suspect most developers of having journalists on their payroll to praise their game nevertheless. I ussually get the bribevibe if i see a game getting the same score across several reviewers.
I'm so often disappointed by a game that i feel i should get my money back, and i would have liked to have never spent it in the first place. Movies have the same issue here, all the while at least at some bookstores i'm allowed to thumb through a store copy before buying my own.

If you want to buy a game of which you aren't sure that it is any good, check the used game section of your local store. If there are lots of copies, it could indicate that many people expected something else. The money you pay for these games doesn't go to the devs directly, so you won't have to worry if you've supported them for a shit game, but rather goes towards the workings of the store itself.

 

[Dizchu]

I consider £40 ($60) launch titles to be like the cinematic portion of a film's run. "Get it while it's hot". Games lower in price dramatically after a few years, especially on digital platforms. With services like Steam we're spoiled, we can buy countless games for really low prices. You can buy so many classics for a price less than a pizza. I wouldn't say that we're getting "fucked over".

 

[DoPo]

DRM issues are unique to games however. There aren't any movies that self combust if you burn them on a dvdv, or books that won't open unless you fax the writer your receipt, and thank god for that.

Erm, let me just quickly copy paste something I already quoted earlier in the thread:

Epic/Sony's release of Celine Dion's A New Day Has Come audio disc this month, which included copy protection technology from Key2Audio, caused a furore after online sites reported that attempts to play the disc on a PC caused computers to crash.

The problem can be even more severe for Mac users.

Not only will the Celine Dion audio disc fail to play on new flat-screen iMacs but it will lock the CD tray and prevent the machine from been rebooted properly. This is not something users can fix themselves and means a trip to a dealer for repairs. An article on Apple's knowledge base explains the issue in more depth.

I'd also like to remind you that defying HTML5 and the open web as a standard [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/defend-open-web-keep-drm-out-w3c-standards] wasn't actually started by the video game industry.

Also, iTunes. I'm fairly sure it still exists. Admittedly, I've not used it but I'm also fairly sure it was DRM bound last I checked it (I don't know if things have changed, though).

Finally, I'm really interested in how you use MS Windows at all. Well, I dunno, I may be jumping to conclusions, but I assume you use MS Windows, or at least have used MS Windows at some point. How did you do it without a product key and without it continually asking you to activate as well as restricting your software updates?

 

[EternallyBored]

I consider £40 ($60) launch titles to be like the cinematic portion of a film's run. "Get it while it's hot". Games lower in price dramatically after a few years, especially on digital platforms. With services like Steam we're spoiled, we can buy countless games for really low prices. You can buy so many classics for a price less than a pizza. I wouldn't say that we're getting "fucked over".

I remember trying to find cheap games in the early 90's during the SNES era. Living in a relatively small town made finding any sort of game a gamble at best. I had to drive a half an hour to the nearest mall to get new games , still $50-60 which adjusted for inflation would be $85-$95 today according to inflation calculators.

The only place in the whole town that sold used games was a thrift store that consistently had maybe a couple dozen NES and a paltry dozen or so SNES games at any given time, and the owner would regularly jack prices up resulting in paying $40-50 for 5 year old NES games, I was never able to find a copy of Chrono Trigger new, and the only used copy I saw was going for a hundred dollars used, I never got to play the game until well into the Playstation era and I still payed more than it cost new to get a hold of it.

I will fully admit that the AAA industry and mobile industry's current tactics surrounding DRM, DLC, microtransaction and free-to-play models have become suspect as hell, and it makes it hard to buy games new without suspicions about what potential a game could have had without such money-grubbing tactics, but I have never had so many games so easily available to me at so low a price as within the last 5 years.

So many classic games that were almost impossible to find growing up are now only a click of a button away, and often for less than a single movie ticket. Even new games are often discounted within months of release, or even before release (nabbed DA:I for $45 before it even came out).

I never would have imagined having a backlog of unplayed games waiting for me to play back in the 90's, during a time when I was just excited to find a $20 CD of the Shareware version of Duke Nukem 3D sitting in a video rental store, or when I would spend weeks trying to find out where to get a hold of the full version of games that were on the demo disks that used to come with PCGamer magazine.

The gaming industry is far from perfect, but I'll be damned if I don't feel like I'm getting a hell of a lot more bang for my buck than I was 20 years ago. Downright spoiled rotten really.

And now I feel old.

 

[SoreWristed]

DRM issues are unique to games however. There aren't any movies that self combust if you burn them on a dvdv, or books that won't open unless you fax the writer your receipt, and thank god for that.

Erm, let me just quickly copy paste something I already quoted earlier in the thread:

Epic/Sony's release of Celine Dion's A New Day Has Come audio disc this month.

I didn't know that, but you can agree this type of BS has come from the video games industry? And i'll mention that video games have had a habit of protecting themselves from piracy dating back to the first Prince of Persia, where you had to have the instruction manual in color to be able to unlock the game. So it's taken quite some time for cds to take it up. So yes, there are now cds that self-destruct, taking your pc with them.

I'd also like to remind you that defying HTML5 and the open web as a standard wasn't actually started by the video game industry.

I had no idea what you were talking about so i clicked the link. Mozilla, is all i have to reply. And since i use mozilla exclusively i was not aware of it's existence. This is just a newer version of the booklet you occasionally had to input codes from, so again, we can say that video games as a medium sprouted this?

Also, iTunes. I'm fairly sure it still exists. Admittedly, I've not used it but I'm also fairly sure it was DRM bound last I checked it (I don't know if things have changed, though).

It isn't, but i can't explain why.

Finally, I'm really interested in how you use MS Windows at all. Well, I dunno, I may be jumping to conclusions, but I assume you use MS Windows, or at least have used MS Windows at some point. How did you do it without a product key and without it continually asking you to activate as well as restricting your software updates?

in order : i do, i have, i did, it doesn't, it doesn't. I don't know why or how, but it simply does not ask me for my product key every time i open it up, and i never had to enter my product key because it came pre-installed.
Again, the prince of persia argument, making me realise i shouldn't have take the effort to reply to each of your statements separately. DOS games had the first DRM, windows and all the rest came after. So yes, i'll agree, that i've worded that statement wrong. Videogames have sprouted the issue of DRM, and have made it worse in recent times. So not unique, just the worst part of the whole, that everyone i care to know the opinion of have been pointing out. Okay, the very first computers also had DRM, but that's because a skilled team of engineers had to come install the several ton behemoth in your house, so there wasn't any chance for piracy.

You could point out that the first person to do it on a grand scale, doesn't get the credit for it, but they do. That's why we call a moral choice system an Infamous system. Or why we call roguelikes roguelike. Or why we call something that tastes or smells faintly of seafood fishy. I can't think of any version of DRM predating DOS games.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Well that's OK, I've always got my books! Damn....$15 for the newest Stephen King book. Well that's OK, we have digital books now! All of the convenience with a cheaper price!....$15 for the newest Stephen King book on my Nook? Well...damn.

Ya, but that's $15 for something that's probably going to give you a good 20 hours of enjoyment (assuming you like King's books). If you really like the book, you might reread it multiple times. Also, are King's books just more expensive than other new releases? Most of my books say they're only 10 bucks US on the back. Regardless, $15 for 20 hours of enjoyment is a pretty fantastic deal.

Books industry aside though, I think you're right.

 

[CaitSeith]

...films DVD £10 blu ray £12 and download options....

And how much in movie theatres? How much time passes between the première and the DVD/BluRay release?

 

[DoPo]

I didn't know that, but you can agree this type of BS has come from the video games industry?

You claim was that it was exclusive to video games. I showed it wasn't. Now you are changing the goalpoasts.

Unfortunately, I am not well versed in the history of DRM, so I googled a bit for "history/start of DRM" but didn't really find anything conclusive - a lot of sources cite 1998 but that's because of the year of DMCA, while the actual start of DRM is supposed to be some time in the early to mid 80s. According to these slides [http://www.cse.sc.edu/~farkas/csce548-2012/project-presentations/DRMPresentationWells.pdf] (PDF) it started off as encrypted containers in '83. While Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#Historical_note] also mentions the same year but doesn't limit it to encrypted containers but a full DRM system including a dedicated hardware component(s?). While none of these two point to video games exactly, I don't think I've enough information to rule out the case.

At any rate, back to your question, it does suggest that no, it didn't.

I'd also like to remind you that defying HTML5 and the open web as a standard wasn't actually started by the video game industry.

I had no idea what you were talking about so i clicked the link. Mozilla, is all i have to reply. And since i use mozilla exclusively i was not aware of it's existence. This is just a newer version of the booklet you occasionally had to input codes from, so again, we can say that video games as a medium sprouted this?

I honestly didn't get that. What about Mozilla? I assume you mean Firefox, but how is that linked to W3C?

As for your question - no, the MPAA and Hollywood do not deserve to be acquitted of anything.

Finally, I'm really interested in how you use MS Windows at all. Well, I dunno, I may be jumping to conclusions, but I assume you use MS Windows, or at least have used MS Windows at some point. How did you do it without a product key and without it continually asking you to activate as well as restricting your software updates?

in order : i do, i have, i did, it doesn't, it doesn't. I don't know why or how, but it simply does not ask me for my product key every time i open it up, and i never had to enter my product key because it came pre-installed.

1. I don't think your answers align with my questions.
2. If you don't know, then I should probably let you know - most likely, since Windows came preinstalled, it has an OEM key activated, as well.

Okay, the very first computers also had DRM, but that's because a skilled team of engineers had to come install the several ton behemoth in your house, so there wasn't any chance for piracy.

Erm, I'm really confused by this as well - what are the first computers? None of the ones I can think of off the top of my head - and Charles Babbage's machine wasn't even the first one that pop to my mind. It was among the top, however, yet, I am fairly sure that's not what you mean here. First I thought of the giant things from the 60s which sure as hell didn't have it. And how could they, as they didn't have spare CPU cycles for piracy checks. I am fairly sure the notion didn't really exist at that point in the computing world, either, considering there were only a few in each country.

That's why we call a moral choice system an Infamous system.

We do? I have never, ever, before this point, heard of this term. The most common I've heard them called is...a moral choice system. Or sometimes alignment, coming from D&D. I didn't think Infamous was either that notable nor that grand to be mentioned.

You could point out that the first person to do it on a grand scale, doesn't get the credit for it, but they do.

I don't know - you're saying that because games were using off-disk protection, nothing else was using it. Yet, I am fairly sure copy protection has existed a lot and has been developed alingside them. I don't think many, if any (though I imagine there were some) games that used them, but hardware locks were available in the DOS era - these were separate hardware that you need to plug in, in order for the software to work at all. Mostly used in bigger scale more corporate-y software. Which only proves that it wasn't games that propagated the tightening up of DRM, as while players had to open a manual, the corporate world dealt with dongles for their DRM. And it didn't stop there - I don't think it was the games industry that was either the first, or innovator, or the biggest pusher for the development of DRM. Possibly had a lot of exposure to common individuals, but I somehow doubt that accounts for the rise of all DRM everywhere.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

And before that, the evil cassette tapes were the spawn of the Anti-give-us-lots-of-money-Christ until they were begrudgingly accepted. Then the discs were the new face of Satan. Then MP3s, as you mentioned. It's like the music industry (as in the giant amorphous lurking entity, as opposed to, like, the actual musicians) is run by a cabal of technophobic 100 year olds.

I found it hilarious when several notable artists came out and broke down the numbers on how badly publishers screw over artists in the first place, with most artists only making money touring because the publishers sucked up all of the recorded music profit (even supposed profits paid to the artists were sucked up by publishers as payment for services that publishhers ensured were in their contracts).

 

[AgedGrunt]

Why is the games industry the only entertainment industry that hasn't evolved?

I'm not sure what you're looking at, but some ISPs in the US are criminal. Talking about the ones that also qualify as entertainment corporations (Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, etc.). I get the obnoxious crap gamers have to put up with, but the worst game companies have nothing on these monsters.

 

[DoPo]

And before that, the evil cassette tapes were the spawn of the Anti-give-us-lots-of-money-Christ until they were begrudgingly accepted. Then the discs were the new face of Satan. Then MP3s, as you mentioned. It's like the music industry (as in the giant amorphous lurking entity, as opposed to, like, the actual musicians) is run by a cabal of technophobic 100 year olds.

I found it hilarious when several notable artists came out and broke down the numbers on how badly publishers screw over artists in the first place, with most artists only making money touring because the publishers sucked up all of the recorded music profit (even supposed profits paid to the artists were sucked up by publishers as payment for services that publishhers ensured were in their contracts).

Somewhat tangentially related, but I've got another hilarious one:

To set the stage, it is long long ago, far far away...or about just about a decade ago in non-mainstream Europe. So there and then, the government decided to launch its new campaign to fight piracy - it was a campaign labelled "Piracy robs". It mostly consisted of plastering the same all over the place. But it also consisted in mobilising any artists they could, in order to provide a background to the slogan. A sad looking background.

Spoiler: Sort of like this

Now imagine there was a "Piracy ROBS!" on there and that's mostly it.

The funny thing is, the artists were really well off so...yeah, like Mel Gibson going "I can't afford another helicopter, all because of filthy pirates". Well, not all of them were rich and popular - some weren't that popular. Possibly because they were not into "mainstream" artistry, like music. Namely, they managed to get some sculptors on the wagon.

Sculptors. Robbed by piracy. Whining about it. I honestly laugh whenever I recall this.

 

[ThreeName]

U wot m8

You ever hear of the concept of "bonus tracks"? Putting one or two extra songs on an album after it had been out for a while so that if you really liked the band and wanted to hear all of their stuff, you had to buy the whole CD again? And that this practice was around long before the ability to download single tracks from an album?

Yeah, no, fuck the music industry.

Oh, and I just remembered a book publisher who specifically watered down the glue in their book so that they'd fall apart quicker, forcing people who wanted to re-read them to buy the books again.

In short, no. You are demonstrably incorrect.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Sculptors. Robbed by piracy. Whining about it.

You know, I can see how if they made their bread and butter on selling repros of their work how they'd have a whinge about unethical pricks selling cheap knock offs... but that doesn't really seem to be the angle the campaign took...

I guess now that 3D printers are a thing it's not quite as funny.


Counter-tangent:

Wasn't some European Copyright enforcement mob sued by one of the people they supposedly represented for using their music in some promotional work without authorisation?