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The rumor that they are attempting to block the used game market through a sort of DRM scheme is disappointing. While I've only ever bought 1 or 2 used games in
by Osiris 15y ago
The rumor that they are attempting to block the used game market through a sort of DRM scheme is disappointing. While I've only ever bought 1 or 2 used games in the past, the act itself is a huge "F* YOU" to consumers and leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
No one likes to feel controller or compelled to act in a certain way, which is why pretty much all DRM schemes have been broken and why the MP3 became so incredibly popular.
I feel like game producers are making the same argument for the second-hand game market as the MPAA makes for pirating movies: Every used game sale is a lost new game sale and blocking used games is better than innovating or changing the pricing/sales structure.
- sjtgraham 15y agoThe MP3 format became popular because it offers a good balance between audio quality and file size, which allowed people to share them easily on P2P networks back when broadband internet was more a novelty than the norm. WAV files have been around forever without DRM.
- caf 15y agoThe MP3 format became popular before P2P networks - they were being shared on FTP sites first.
- sjtgraham 15y agoThere are different degrees of popularity. The amount of people that shared files using FTP and usenet pales in comparison to the amount of users of P2P networks. I think it's fair to say that Napster and then P2P made MP3 ubiquitous.
- caf 15y agoI think Winamp, which predated Napster by a couple of years, was really the turning point that made MP3 popular. Really MP3 made P2P networks popular, rather than the other way around.
- Shorel 15y agoMy 4GB hard disk was full of MP3 one or two years before Napster appeared. It was the same for lots of my friends.
- christoph 15y agoI honestly lost my faith in Sony respecting their customers when they removed a feature I paid for, from my hardware (PS3 Linux compatibility) then leaked all my personal data through poor (non-existent?) security.
- ewillbefull 15y agoAdd attempts at suing reverse engineers for posting decryption keys (mathematically derived, no less) to that list.
- ktizo 15y agoI think for me it was when they rootkitted loads of customers machines by putting malware onto their music CDs.
- jonnathanson 15y ago"I feel like game producers are making the same argument for the second-hand game market as the MPAA makes for pirating movies:" Actually, they're making the exact same argument. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which is the video gaming industry's equivalent of the MPAA, also sponsored PIPA and SOPA. The gaming industry's involvement in that legislation managed to fly under the radar, for most part, while everyone was focused on "Hollywood." In reality, Big Gaming and Big Entertainment are strikingly similar industries, with strikingly similar politics.
- RyanMcGreal 15y agoAt one time, book publishers lobbied to make it illegal to sell used books. That was a time in which governments were still able to reason their way to a balance between intellectual property owners' rights and the public interest.
- ralfd 15y agoIt depends. You also can't resell iOS games, but their price point is also an order of magnitude lower than the $50 of console titles.