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>> The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices. I think it's noteworthy that game consoles do this in the opp

>> The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices. I think it's noteworthy that game consoles do this in the opposite direction: give creators of playback devices leverage over content providers. This was basically why console DRM evolved in the first place (in the early forms of the 10NES lockout chip and the Atari 7800 signature scheme). Accordingly, console DRM schemes are typically stronger against unauthorized publishing of novel works than they are against unauthorized copying of already-published works (the latter being encrypted and signed in the expected way, thus only requiring subversion of a weaker "authentic disc" check). Apart from norms differing by industry, I would guess that the key to the directionality is which side thinks they can control access to a greater number of customers.

criddell 5y ago
I think this is true in ebooks and ereaders as well. There's a whole generation of readers that have bought a lot of ebooks from a single vendor. It has the effect of locking them to that vendor or possibly losing their collection.
kmeisthax 5y ago
Games have (and more generally, all software has) a unique weakness that doesn't apply to other forms of media: they are entirely at the mercy of their playback technologies to exist. So, just as an example... let's talk about the last major physical media format war: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. The thing that killed HD-DVD was that Blu-Ray had better DRM. Switching between the two formats was as simple as copying a file from one encoder to another; so the movie studios picked the one that gave them the most control. Switching between game consoles is like telling the director of a movie to change from shooting in 16:9 to 21:9. It's possible, but you're going to be spending a lot of extra time and effort to switch aspect ratios. Now, granted, people have gotten really good at porting games to new systems, but it still requires time and effort to do, especially when it comes to testing and certification. A game developer porting a game to a system is, ultimately, a vote of confidence that the system will have a viable commercial software market 1-2 years down the line. Developers are at the mercy of console manufacturers, and thus they're very conservative with what platforms to develop on. So companies trying to enter the console business basically need to do half a decade's worth of business development and funding just to get a foot in the door. Which makes the few platforms that are successful that much more powerful. Another interesting quirk of the games industry is that consoles are often manufactured by companies that also fund or develop games, and those companies specifically withhold their games from other platforms to make their own consoles better. There's no need for Nintendo to demand that they pay themselves a 30% platform royalty to publish games on their own platform; and they aren't going to start paying Sony 30% so that people can buy Mario on PlayStation. Very, very early on in the history of American cinema, the US government made an antitrust case against movie studios that more or less banned them from owning the theaters that displayed their content. Since then, it's been the case that production and distribution were two separate specialties, with copyright law existing to ensure the latter can't screw over the former. Hence where we get "DRM exists to control player manufacturers". Games came along much later and their business models more or less never attracted antitrust scrutiny[0] until very recently when Epic decided to make a federal lawsuit out of it. My gut feeling is that it doesn't actually make a whole lot of business sense as a publisher or developer to outsource distribution to a third party. That's why you've seen Netflix go from "everything streaming instantly for cheap" to original productions; and why every other publisher made their own streaming platform to cut out the Netflix middleman. The only remaining link in the chain from publishers to you are device manufacturers: Apple, Google, Samsung, Roku, etc. This business looks a lot more like game consoles than player manufacturing, which shifts the balance of market power to the companies making the players. [0] Yes, the FTC sued Nintendo but that was more about the price of games and consoles, not the software lockout that prohibited you from otherwise lawfully making and selling your own Nintendo cartridges.

criddell 5y ago

I think this is true in ebooks and ereaders as well. There's a whole generation of readers that have bought a lot of ebooks from a single vendor. It has the effect of locking them to that vendor or possibly losing their collection.

kmeisthax 5y ago

Games have (and more generally, all software has) a unique weakness that doesn't apply to other forms of media: they are entirely at the mercy of their playback technologies to exist. So, just as an example... let's talk about the last major physical media format war: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. The thing that killed HD-DVD was that Blu-Ray had better DRM. Switching between the two formats was as simple as copying a file from one encoder to another; so the movie studios picked the one that gave them the most control. Switching between game consoles is like telling the director of a movie to change from shooting in 16:9 to 21:9. It's possible, but you're going to be spending a lot of extra time and effort to switch aspect ratios. Now, granted, people have gotten really good at porting games to new systems, but it still requires time and effort to do, especially when it comes to testing and certification. A game developer porting a game to a system is, ultimately, a vote of confidence that the system will have a viable commercial software market 1-2 years down the line. Developers are at the mercy of console manufacturers, and thus they're very conservative with what platforms to develop on. So companies trying to enter the console business basically need to do half a decade's worth of business development and funding just to get a foot in the door. Which makes the few platforms that are successful that much more powerful. Another interesting quirk of the games industry is that consoles are often manufactured by companies that also fund or develop games, and those companies specifically withhold their games from other platforms to make their own consoles better. There's no need for Nintendo to demand that they pay themselves a 30% platform royalty to publish games on their own platform; and they aren't going to start paying Sony 30% so that people can buy Mario on PlayStation. Very, very early on in the history of American cinema, the US government made an antitrust case against movie studios that more or less banned them from owning the theaters that displayed their content. Since then, it's been the case that production and distribution were two separate specialties, with copyright law existing to ensure the latter can't screw over the former. Hence where we get "DRM exists to control player manufacturers". Games came along much later and their business models more or less never attracted antitrust scrutiny[0] until very recently when Epic decided to make a federal lawsuit out of it. My gut feeling is that it doesn't actually make a whole lot of business sense as a publisher or developer to outsource distribution to a third party. That's why you've seen Netflix go from "everything streaming instantly for cheap" to original productions; and why every other publisher made their own streaming platform to cut out the Netflix middleman. The only remaining link in the chain from publishers to you are device manufacturers: Apple, Google, Samsung, Roku, etc. This business looks a lot more like game consoles than player manufacturing, which shifts the balance of market power to the companies making the players. [0] Yes, the FTC sued Nintendo but that was more about the price of games and consoles, not the software lockout that prohibited you from otherwise lawfully making and selling your own Nintendo cartridges.