6th June 2013, 8:51 PM
(This post was last modified: 6th June 2013, 9:03 PM by A Black Falcon.)
Perhaps the number one thing that gaming needs right now, as far as rights are concerned, is a way to sell digital games. There are a lot of other important issues, and I'll cover some below, but seriously, this one comes first both because it's realistic -- systems to allow this could be put into place -- and because it's necessary and should exist. I understand why companies don't allow it, but this NEEDS to happen. It is not okay that I can't sell even my "DRM-free" GOG games. So, if I bought packs of stuff and ended up with duplicate games (say I have something on disc, and in Steam, and maybe elsewhere as well), why can't I sell the extras, and just keep my disc copy? It's ridiculous that this is not allowed.
Yes, I understand, you could just install a game and then sell it, etc. But PC games used to be like that. Plenty of games let you install them and then run off the HDD, without even a disc check, or on floppy of course with no disk check once installed. There was no way for them to keep people from reselling games after installing them. Companies are just greedy and don't want to allow resale of digital games because they think they'll make more money this way, than they would if they were nicer and people had more of their rights -- once you own something you own it, period. Of course finding pirates in that case would be hard... but honestly, oh well. Piracy is going to happen, no matter what DRM companies use. I can understand using some mechanism to try to block out pirates when a game first releases, since that's when most of the money is made, but after that... there's not much benefit, and a lot of harm to the consumer.
Anyway, as far as law is concerned, digital games should be considered to be the same as physical ones. It is not okay that digital has no resale. And on something like the X1, setting up a resale shop for digital games would actually be quite easy, since all games are locked to your account and have keys and such. Sure, MS has this hard to understand "you can permanantly give a game to someone who's been on your friends list for at least 30 days, but then they can't ever give the game to anyone after that" system, but a simple buyback system wouldn't be hard, and really would be a great feature. The same is true for Steam as well; sure, they couldn't keep people from keeping "backups" of the games, particularly those that don't have Steamworks DRM, but people have their rights, and you can't take away everybody's rights just because some people are going to exploit the system. As I said, you'll have pirates regardless. All adding in all that DRM does is makes people angrier at you, and people have a right to sell things they have bought.
I mean, look at GOG. You can't resell GOG games either (this is bad!), but GOG gets nearly a completely free pass and people call their games "DRM-free", just because they don't have keys or internet checks or stuff like that.
As for changing wording from "buy" to "license", that of course is going in the exactly wrong direction. Once you've bought a game, you've bought it. That "license" excuse is awful, and in a better world wouldn't hold up.
Oh, and yes, I own some duplicate Steam games that I wish I could sell off. I don't need Steam copies of older games I own on physical discs.)
One other interesting thing about Steam is that I have some games that require Steam to install, but don't actually have Steamworks DRM, so even though I bought the [physical] games used, and they are Steam-required games, they install and play just fine. This is basically exactly what I'm talking about'; there's no way to guarantee that whoever sold those games didn't keep them on their computer too, maybe with a disc-check cracker for games that require the disc in... but the companies weren't being completely evil, so resale was simple. And this really is a big issue. I mean, as I said in the OP, MS's scheme here basically kills flea markets, EBay, Amazon marketplace sales, private sales, etc etc. Digital-only stuff hurts those people as well, of course, but physical restrictions are worse. Now you might say "oh well, the world is going all digital", but why should we surrender our rights just because some people want to get rid of physical everything? That's not okay!
And yes, I love that I was able to buy extremely cheap copies of some games. I think I like Alone in the Dark (the modern remake) more at the $1 I paid for it than I would had I paid full price or something, for example. Puzzle Quest Galactrix for $1 was a pretty good deal as well, and Fallout 3 for $3. Digital only makes distribution easy, but killing the natural price shifting of the open marketplace in favor of one where the publisher has full control at all times is TERRIBLE.
And that, of course, raises the issue that this means that piracy aside, in this future games die when they stop being sold. So yeah, thank all of those pirates working hard to make sure everything gets backed up, and hope that they can crack any future DRM -- otherwise there's no future for anything in this industry. As someone who buys huge numbers of used console games, and who loves history (videogame and other), this matters to me, obviously.
Yes, I understand, you could just install a game and then sell it, etc. But PC games used to be like that. Plenty of games let you install them and then run off the HDD, without even a disc check, or on floppy of course with no disk check once installed. There was no way for them to keep people from reselling games after installing them. Companies are just greedy and don't want to allow resale of digital games because they think they'll make more money this way, than they would if they were nicer and people had more of their rights -- once you own something you own it, period. Of course finding pirates in that case would be hard... but honestly, oh well. Piracy is going to happen, no matter what DRM companies use. I can understand using some mechanism to try to block out pirates when a game first releases, since that's when most of the money is made, but after that... there's not much benefit, and a lot of harm to the consumer.
Anyway, as far as law is concerned, digital games should be considered to be the same as physical ones. It is not okay that digital has no resale. And on something like the X1, setting up a resale shop for digital games would actually be quite easy, since all games are locked to your account and have keys and such. Sure, MS has this hard to understand "you can permanantly give a game to someone who's been on your friends list for at least 30 days, but then they can't ever give the game to anyone after that" system, but a simple buyback system wouldn't be hard, and really would be a great feature. The same is true for Steam as well; sure, they couldn't keep people from keeping "backups" of the games, particularly those that don't have Steamworks DRM, but people have their rights, and you can't take away everybody's rights just because some people are going to exploit the system. As I said, you'll have pirates regardless. All adding in all that DRM does is makes people angrier at you, and people have a right to sell things they have bought.
I mean, look at GOG. You can't resell GOG games either (this is bad!), but GOG gets nearly a completely free pass and people call their games "DRM-free", just because they don't have keys or internet checks or stuff like that.
As for changing wording from "buy" to "license", that of course is going in the exactly wrong direction. Once you've bought a game, you've bought it. That "license" excuse is awful, and in a better world wouldn't hold up.
Oh, and yes, I own some duplicate Steam games that I wish I could sell off. I don't need Steam copies of older games I own on physical discs.)
One other interesting thing about Steam is that I have some games that require Steam to install, but don't actually have Steamworks DRM, so even though I bought the [physical] games used, and they are Steam-required games, they install and play just fine. This is basically exactly what I'm talking about'; there's no way to guarantee that whoever sold those games didn't keep them on their computer too, maybe with a disc-check cracker for games that require the disc in... but the companies weren't being completely evil, so resale was simple. And this really is a big issue. I mean, as I said in the OP, MS's scheme here basically kills flea markets, EBay, Amazon marketplace sales, private sales, etc etc. Digital-only stuff hurts those people as well, of course, but physical restrictions are worse. Now you might say "oh well, the world is going all digital", but why should we surrender our rights just because some people want to get rid of physical everything? That's not okay!
And yes, I love that I was able to buy extremely cheap copies of some games. I think I like Alone in the Dark (the modern remake) more at the $1 I paid for it than I would had I paid full price or something, for example. Puzzle Quest Galactrix for $1 was a pretty good deal as well, and Fallout 3 for $3. Digital only makes distribution easy, but killing the natural price shifting of the open marketplace in favor of one where the publisher has full control at all times is TERRIBLE.
And that, of course, raises the issue that this means that piracy aside, in this future games die when they stop being sold. So yeah, thank all of those pirates working hard to make sure everything gets backed up, and hope that they can crack any future DRM -- otherwise there's no future for anything in this industry. As someone who buys huge numbers of used console games, and who loves history (videogame and other), this matters to me, obviously.