• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Peter Moore: Disc Based Gaming Is A "Burning Platform"

Tobor said:
Which leads us back to the Trojan Horse MS and Sony have been wheeling into our living rooms inch by inch.

We're talking about a 10 year window, anyway. A sea change in bandwidth is a certainty in that time.
I think more people need to realize the timeframe discussed. IIRC in 1999 a friend of mine was paying upwards of ~70/month to get 384/384 DSL in a major metropolitan city and Duke Nukem Forever was only experiencing slight delays. 10 years from now I'd be mildly surprised if we were even still using consoles (at the least I'd expect we'd be on our final consoles by current standards).
 
poppabk said:
But this doesn't apply to DRM. It doesn't matter if you completely own the software on the disk if it requires authentication from a server to operate and will only authenticate once per copy. The quoted legislation says nothing about this and the DMCA is pretty clear that circumvention of DRM is not allowed in nearly all circumstances.

I wasn't talking about DRM, but still It depends. If a company uses DRM to devalue my property, only allows X number of installs or prevent me from playing my game then I say it does, but again all of this has gone largely unchallenged and it will have to get taken to court.

In any case DRM is a failed system as evidenced in the music industry. Nobody likes it and only so much will be tolerated. The same will eventually happen with games.

The point is that the videogame industry brazenly admits that they are renting you a game, in spite of legal precendent, and that they can take it away from you whenever they wish. They get away with it now because no one has stood up to them, but eventually someone will.
 
lowrider007 said:
What about this chap,
Why has the law not came down on the companies that have these kinds of practices that are common with PC games and applications ?, are you guys saying that these company's are breaking the law (US) with their strict DRM policies ?

The law governs what legal, not what technological, measures can be put in place. If MS develops a system where every Xbox title is Live Arcade and ties them only to the console ID, that's OK, but they're not allowed to harass you if you try to sell the Xbox. There hasn't really been a lot of consumer-level litigation on more interactive services that springs to mind, however.
 
TAJ said:
That's just stunningly dumb. You'd eliminate the DVD-ROM drive but add terabytes of extra HDD space to save money? Then you'd cut off most of the market for your games by leaving the drive out.

I've spent about $800 worth of points on XBLM. (I "only" paid about $500 for those points, but MS doesn't know that.) If they look at my purchasing habits and assume that I'd welcome a DD-only console, they're sadly mistaken.

My God. for all my talk of welcoming DD in the future, you’ve already embraced it much more than I have where it actually counts. With your wallet.
 
Zachack said:
I think more people need to realize the timeframe discussed. IIRC in 1999 a friend of mine was paying upwards of ~70/month to get 384/384 DSL in a major metropolitan city and Duke Nukem Forever was only experiencing slight delays. 10 years from now I'd be mildly surprised if we were even still using consoles (at the least I'd expect we'd be on our final consoles by current standards).

10 years ago I was on the same cable I'm on now. Charter. It went from 1.5 to 5 down in that amount of time. The cost has gone up by about five bucks since I have a large package and the discounts apply to that. What's funny is the modem hasn't changed at all since then. I've had maybe five die on me in that time, and they are always replaced with another similar looking model.

In 10 years, we will all have 20GB caps.
 
Is it safe to say that blu-ray is pretty much a given for the next wave of HD consoles? Wouldnt ISPs be pretty much against 50GB downloads? Arent they trying to cap bandwidth as it is?
 
Haven't read the rest of the thread, but -

Sigh. Why do they not want my money. Fuck them. I don't want cloud-driven, subscription-based service-oriented bullcockfuckshitery. I want to own my own stuff, WHAT A FUCKING CONCEPT.

Maybe I can tell my kids "Sonny, remember when we used to not get raped in the ass? Those were the days."

Fuck them and their bullshit. I won't have any of it. If think they can sell me this "future" then I'll find something better to spend my money on. I'm pretty attached to games, but there are other fish in the sea. Cater to me or don't get my business. Marketing 101.
 
I really don't care whether or not I "own" the games I play. It really doesn't matter to me. The game itself has no intrinsic value. I download it, play it, discard it. Whether or not the code of the game sits on a disc or in cyberspace somewhere there's no difference to me.
 
Number 2 said:
Is it safe to say that blu-ray is pretty much a given for the next wave of HD consoles? Wouldnt ISPs be pretty much against 50GB downloads? Arent they trying to cap bandwidth as it is?


well, the next wave of consoles will not be DD only so it’s not something to worry about yet.

those consoles are less than 3 years away. Sony will use Blu ray but I swear I have no idea what MS will do. They might just stick with DVD. I wouldn’t put it past them if they want to go in a more casual and cheaper direction.
 
Number 2 said:
Is it safe to say that blu-ray is pretty much a given for the next wave of HD consoles? Wouldnt ISPs be pretty much against 50GB downloads? Arent they trying to cap bandwidth as it is?

Who's to say that 50gig games will be or will start to be a requirement? Look at the easily the best selling game that will be released this year... MW2. It easily fits on a DVD. Just because the space is there, doesn't mean we NEED it right now. Is it nice to have... sure, is it REQUIRED... not yet. Time will tell but I'm not sure what the next systems will have to be honest.
 
Number 2 said:
Is it safe to say that blu-ray is pretty much a given for the next wave of HD consoles? Wouldnt ISPs be pretty much against 50GB downloads? Arent they trying to cap bandwidth as it is?

This is why I think a lot of this stuff is just a pipe dream.

I think everyone underestimates just how much telecom companies want to ruin the internet.
 
poppabk said:
But this doesn't apply to DRM. It doesn't matter if you completely own the software on the disk if it requires authentication from a server to operate and will only authenticate once per copy. The quoted legislation says nothing about this and the DMCA is pretty clear that circumvention of DRM is not allowed in nearly all circumstances.

DMCA is a law against illegal copying of protected content. It is an extension of copyright law that try to protect content in the digital ages.

Want some case law? Vernor vs. Autodesk

TLDR: Autodesk tried to use the DMCA to shutdown the Ebay sale of some of it's product by Mr. Vernor. MR. Vernor notified Ebay that the copy that he was trying to resell were ligitimate. Autodesk reintered the complain to Ebay and Ebay suspended Vernor's account. Vernor sued Autodesk and won.

On Authentification, that has not been validated by the court yet but the Clayton act seems to apply if the company making the software product try to prohibit resale by anti-competive practive. ie. Not allowing transfer of ownership using DRM or Authentification.

Specifically,

On Price

Clayton Act said:
It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce, either directly or indirectly, to discriminate in price between different purchasers of commodities of like grade and quality, where either or any of the purchases involved in such discrimination are in commerce, where such commodities are sold for use, consumption, or resale within the United States..

On resale
Clayton Act said:
It shall be unlawful for any person to discriminate in favor of one purchaser against another purchaser or purchasers of a commodity bought for resale, with or without processing, by contracting to furnish or furnishing, or by contributing to the furnishing of, any services or facilities connected with the processing, handling, sale, or offering for sale of such commodity so purchased upon terms not accorded to all purchasers on proportionally equal terms.
My bold
 
Yes, admittedly DD in the future is most likely inevitable for home consoles unfortunately. For the people who are actually embracing an all DD only future. I am guaranteeing you that companies will take advantage of the consumers every chance they get. Have fun paying for full price for 3 year old games that you can't do a thing with after you are bored of them.
 
Options to purchase products > no option to purchase products.

DD would basically restrict the way consumers would buy games. I'm convinced sales will go down by eliminating retail. Not everyone is going to download 10GB games.
 
percephone said:
DMCA is a law against illegal copying of protected content. It is an extension of copyright law that try to protect content in the digital ages.

Want some case law? Vernor vs. Autodesk

On Authentification, that has not been validated by the court yet but the Clayton act seems to apply if the company making the software product try to prohibit resale by anti-competive practive. ie. Not allowing transfer of ownership using DRM or Authentification.
DMCA is law which makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection, which would imply that copy protection is itself recognized as legal. The autodesk case appears to be mainly about restricting sales of legitimate working copies of autodesk that were protected by license agreements. He was suing for his right to sell them, not for his right to have a saleable copy, which I think is substantially different.
So the question comes down to whether DRM is illegal when it comes to the first sales doctrine. DD almost definitely constitutes a first sale, but it is hard to tell whether the first sales doctrine requires a product to be transferable. The current cases seem to revolve around whether a license is binding, DRM has not been addressed as far as I know, and the use of anti-trust legislation might be a stretch.
 
it's bound to happen and i'd wholeheartedly support it.

once the bandwidth gets to a point where we can support instantly downloadable content and it's available everywhere on the planet... discs will be long gone.
 
-viper- said:
Options to purchase products > no option to purchase products.

DD would basically restrict the way consumers would buy games. I'm convinced sales will go down by eliminating retail. Not everyone is going to download 10GB games.


I remember how large a 90 MB FFVIII PC demo seemed to me in 1999. I had to get a PC magazine to get that as I couldn’t download it.

90 MB seemed huge.

In ten years, 10 GB won’t seem like so much.

Heck, even now. 10 GB is just a couple HD movies off Apple TV or the MS marketplace. or around 5 large game demos. hardly a huge amount.
 
I figure you were referring to me, so here I go.

Kaijima said:
The post upthread that said people who buy/sell/re-sell games are not "normal" is dead wrong. They are not GAF; not the pointed tip of the hardcore - Gamestop couldn't exist and operate as they do if only the 5% of the elite hardcore gamers were trading physical products.

Wait, let me get this straight. So GAF is sticking up for the casual gamers now? After years and years of berating, ridiculing, and mocking them? Come on. GAF may be a hooker with a heart of gold, but it ain't that noble. It's absurd to think that gaffers in this thread have been arguing against DD purely out of altruistic concern for the "Joe the Gamers" everywhere.

Plus, do you really think Joe the Gamer will even give a shit what the distribution medium happens to be ten years down the line? All he'll care about is being able to get the game he wants, when he wants, without paying more than he feels he should pay. I highly doubt he'll be so broken-hearted over being unable to trade-in his old PS2 or 360 titles for credit toward a new game purchase.

So again, who do you really think GAF is thinking about here when GAF is bitching about not being able to trade in or re-sell games? And on that point...continue reading below...

Everyone trades and sells and buys used to save some scratch. It's simply good consumer habits

...no, it's good consumer habits to not buy 95% of the games in the first place. That is why the entire "DD is a bad idea because it removes my ability to save money"--and truthfully, that's what the argument boils down to--argument is complete nonsense. Buying a new 60-dollar game, only to sell/trade it in a month for 2/3 of its MSRP, only to apply that credit to another 60-dollar game in a never-ending cycle of ever-diminishing returns...costs you MORE in the long-run.

If you were serious about saving money at all, you'd go to a Blockbuster to spend 8 or 10 bucks on a rental, or you'd wait a few weeks until the game is available to rent, or wait even longer to pick up the game at the inevitable price-drop.

If any of you were serious about saving money at all, you wouldn't have monthly "Pick Up and Post" threads. If any of you were serious about saving money at all, you wouldn't have yearly "Show us your gaming set-up" threads.

Granted, those gaming set-up threads are actually useful, because they can give you some really great ideas about layouts, but when there are pictures of shelves featuring nothing but dozens, upon dozens, upon dozens, upon dozens of games...it becomes incredibly difficult for anyone to realistically discuss "good consumer habits" in this forum.

Let's not forget gaffers talking about buying multiple copies of the same game. Or about the many collector's editions they've picked up. Or about their propensity to pay upwards of 15 dollars just to get a tin case with their "Day One" purchase.

Come on man, let's not play the "it's good consumer habits" game here. lol

it is, ironically, the elite hardcore gamers who are super prissy about only buying new physical products and get furious when they suspect a Gamestop employee has opened a "new" game to play it in the store.

Okay, so then why should the "elite hardcore gamers" be against DD? DD guarantees them a truly new, unopened game.

The average person still wants to have value in the products they buy after they buy them, to be able to trade and sell them freely and get some of that value back to go towards new purchases.

That "value" is artificial. Why should anyone let an outside system determine what value their game purchase has? Simple answer: they shouldn't.

The game industry as it is now just wants all the money forever, and the hell with the customer; they really wish the customer didn't exist. He is annoying because he wants to be treated fairly and has a ludicrous belief that the company is supposed to be serving him; instead of the other way around. They would much prefer to deal with safe, faceless demographics that do what the game industry orders them to do.

I'm sorry, but the level of hyperbole here is staggering. The industry just wants all the money forever? They wish the customer didn't exist? Don't you realize how contradictory those two sentences even are? There is no money to have if the customer didn't exist. The gaming industry wants happy customers just as much as customers want a happy industry. When one suffers, the other suffers. That's simple economics.

Furthermore, and this goes for everyone reading, if you don't like how things operate now...if you want things to stabilize...get out and do something about it. Stop just wantonly buying hundreds of dollars worth of crap you'll likely play for a few days then eventually trade-in. Stop acting like you all are completely innocent in how insane the industry has become. I'm not trying to preach here, but sometimes I really can't understand GAF's thought process.
 
LCfiner said:
I remember how large a 90 MB FFVIII PC demo seemed to me in 1999. I had to get a PC magazine to get that as I couldn’t download it.

90 MB seemed huge.

In ten years, 10 GB won’t seem like so much.

Heck, even now. 10 GB is just a couple HD movies off Apple TV or the MS marketplace. or around 5 large game demos. hardly a huge amount.
Your personal experience is not equatable to an advance in technology. In 1999 downloading a couple of GB meant nothing to me as I was on a university T3 line, while for my in-laws downloading the average email attachment is still a big chore, because they don't have cable or DSL in their area. There have not been any major technological break throughs in the last decade with regards to increasing data transfer that I am aware of, broadband is just more readily available.
If you think the telecommunications companies are gonna rip up all the lines they currently have installed so that they can increase your speed/bandwidth you are mistaken, bandwidth won't be increasing significantly for most people for a long time.
 
Sadly physical media is a dead man walking, A real ghost in shell....

It's nice to have a mountain of games to pick from, nicer to just scroll to a dl-ed copy.
I like to be able to switch games on an Xmb
 
The Blue Jihad said:
Plus, do you really think Joe the Gamer will even give a shit what the distribution medium happens to be ten years down the line? All he'll care about is being able to get the game he wants, when he wants, without paying more than he feels he should pay. I highly doubt he'll be so broken-hearted over being unable to trade-in his old PS2 or 360 titles for credit toward a new game purchase.

Holy heck, are you out of touch. If people didn't want to trade in their games for credit, then Gamestop would be out of business instead of being the biggest game retailer.

You're right about this, though: Joe wants the game he's after, when he wants it, without paying more than he feels he should pay. And that's where DD falls flat on its face. That's the point of trading in games (never mind that there are more cost-effective options; Joe doesn't know or doesn't find them convenient).

I'm going to start a thread about this after work...
 
If the future is DD, my purchases better not be tied to one console. I'll need to be able to redownload if my console/HDD fails.
 
well one has to ask how will the dvd and blu ray market be doing 10 yrs down the road?

i am sure the physical media will remain and prices for blu ray will have dropped drastically - if it isnt already replaced by another Higher higher definition.

physical media for big production games will remain - especially with advances like cryengine 3 - it is not becoming for the masses to download games of that caliber and then find out after the consoles life cycle and heaven forbid their console dies on them - that they no longer retain ownership rights to said digital downloaded game- i think that the recent releases for arkham asylum and borderlands has proven that 39.99 is the price most consumers wouldnt mind spending for a brand new game instead of waiting it out for it to show up in the used section for roughly the same price.
 
And which telcom is going to stand for DD'ing potentially millions of games at 4-27 gigs each? They can keep saying DD is the future all they want, but, at least in the states, the infrastructure simply isn't there to support such a massive venture.

Whatever floats their boat, though.

Of course, I'm still remembering the days when they said that broadband will be everywhere. That was years ago. I give it 20 years until we're at where we're supposed to be (with other nations). Hope I'm proven wrong and we get up there faster, but I'm ont optimistic.
 
I'm all for a combination DD and physical media. The games I WANT in physical format. The impulse games for cheap DD. I like DD for demos.
 
The question is how long it'll take.

My guess? 10 years for it to be completely digital. In the next generation I'm guessing digital will already be maybe half of the sales on consoles.
 
The Blue Jihad said:
I'm sorry, but the level of hyperbole here is staggering. The industry just wants all the money forever? They wish the customer didn't exist? Don't you realize how contradictory those two sentences even are? There is no money to have if the customer didn't exist. The gaming industry wants happy customers just as much as customers want a happy industry. When one suffers, the other suffers. That's simple economics.

I wasn't referring to any one post. As for this part here:

Yes, I do think your remarks seem out of touch. The game industry - much of it, not ALL of it - has run amok for a while now. They do not want to service the customers; they don't put them first. The push for DRM that treats the customer like a criminal, the push for milking franchises to death with no new content, the push for DD to "sell" people products that they don't own, but only lease, and many other things. What the industry "wants" is demographics; they want to sell hardcore games to an addicted hardcore - in this regard some of what you've said has bearing - sell "casual" - read: stupid and cheap - games to "the new casual demographic" - read: the latest trendy demographic label to have been created. They would prefer it if they retained all the value of what they sell themselves - yes, they want all the money forever. Business is about money, but there's business, then there's rapacious greed and glee at raping what is judged to be a plump, ignorant market ripe for the picking.

And Joe Average just wants the games, and part of him wanting to pay what what he feels is fair has come to hinge on used games and re-selling. It's an entire /culture/ at this point. Once again: Gamestop might not be able to exist without that culture at this point, as a sign of how widespread it is.

As an aside, the various comparisons to the success of music DD with iTunes leading the way is kind of misleading, I think. The iTunes model is based upon the sale of individual music tracks at a very low price, tracks that the buyer either already is familiar with or can test before purchase. When people buy music they know they enjoy, it tends to become something that they keep forever and extract essentially unlimited usage from. There's no real reason for them to sell used music when it comes in a form that doesn't stick them with whole albums full of drek that they just wanted one single from, albums that they end up having no use for and could stand to unload and get a bit back on their purchase for.

There /is/ a point to be made that part of the fault lays in the hands of the way that game companies are developing and releasing games. But the problem that is more core to the issue is that publishers are not focusing on true "evergreen" titles but on disposable yearly updates and exploitable franchises. Most games are not games most people would want to keep. They lose value - that includes play value - quickly. Symbiotic relationship between customer and publisher? Sure. But, I suspect, the mentality of the publishers up till this point has been that they liked it that way and didn't mind if the customer "demographics" became conditioned to purchase those kinds of games. Less risky business; easier to develop disposable updates, no dicey investment in new ideas and new IP. Eventually leads to inbreeding and stagnation, and to, oh, huh, a huge used game marketing and culture of buying used, trading, and selling. Suddenly the industry gets real unhappy...
 
grandjedi6 said:
Every reason for why Microsoft wants a digital download only future is a reason why consumers shouldn't want that :/

What the fuck does this have to do with Microsoft?

edit: my bad, Peter lists them as being a good bet pioneering the all-DD console. Sorry, grand.
 
Synth_floyd said:
It's the obvious next step. Music has already gone DD. Sales of CDs are down and downloaded music is up. And of course there's all the music that gets pirated for free. Games will be next, maybe in 10 years or so and 2 generations from now.

I can buy my music DRM free from iTunes and do whatever the hell I want to with it. Where, in your little analogy, do DRM'd, platform-locked videogames fit in?
 
lowrider007 said:
:lol what do you mean 'nothing' ?, I get to experience a game, just as I would if I had a physical copy, when you buy a game in physical form you don't actually 'own' that game, you've just purchased license to play a copy of it.

You're implying I can sell my copy of Trials HD that I bought on XBLA or lend it to a friend if I want to? 'cause I can sure as hell do that with my physical copy of Arkham.
 
HK-47 said:
Price drops, especially since there is competition between stores and for shelf space. Not to mention the added competition of online retail sites and auction sites. You lose those options with DD.
But ultimately, all new games come from the same place. Even if there are a million different retailers selling Uncharted 2, every single one of them bought their copy from Sony. Unless they do cross-subsidizing, it can never be cheaper than the floor Sony sets.
 
lowrider007 said:
It's us that are 'technically' breaking the law, it's just that license agreements of this nature are hard to enforce legally so they are often flaunted, all the publishers are doing is enforcing it themselves by means of DD, they are not taking away consumer rights.

Holy mother of God you are the king of fucking trolls.
 
Slavik81 said:
But ultimately, all new games come from the same place. Even if there are a million different retailers selling Uncharted 2, every single one of them bought their copy from Sony. Unless they do cross-subsidizing, it can never be cheaper than the floor Sony sets.


That's just wrong. A game doesn't sell in the retail sector and Gamestop has 100k left over stock through the country, instead of sitting there at 59.99 it drops in price. Most stores are only paying 5 - 10 bucks less than what they charge you on a new game. So anything below that is below the floor Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, EA, or who ever sets. With DD there's no left over stock taking up shelf space that needs to be cleared out. A game can sit at what ever price they want it to indefinitely. Plus again there's going to be no competition, when Sony is the only one selling you games for you PS4, there isn't going to be price matching deals or shit like that.
 
Scrubking said:
I love it when the videogame industry tells us, the consumer, how it's going to be. Quotes like these show how out of touch the people in the videogame industry are. They think they can dictate what we will buy in the future. I see that going really well for them - like when Sony told us we'd buy a $600 console and like it. Yeah, that worked out very well didn't it.

It really is funny how anyone can think that dictating to the consumer is a sound business strategy. "You will buy DD and you will like it because it's the future!" The videogame industry desperately needs a major crash in order to get these idiots who have run things into the ground out.

Probably the best post in this thread.
 
Shin Johnpv said:
That's just wrong. A game doesn't sell in the retail sector and Gamestop has 100k left over stock through the country, instead of sitting there at 59.99 it drops in price. Most stores are only paying 5 - 10 bucks less than what they charge you on a new game. So anything below that is below the floor Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, EA, or who ever sets. With DD there's no left over stock taking up shelf space that needs to be cleared out. A game can sit at what ever price they want it to indefinitely. Plus again there's going to be no competition, when Sony is the only one selling you games for you PS4, there isn't going to be price matching deals or shit like that.

"leftover stock" isn't the only reason for price drops. Publishers are very aware there are certain customers that are price sensitive, and those that aren't. Who do you think is still buying PS2s?

Even in a DD only future, Games will sit at full price (say, 59.99) until they stop moving enough units to justify dropping the price to get those on board that will only consider 39.99, or 29.99...whatever.

it might TAKE a while, but do you really think Halo X will still be at full price the week before/After Halo XI comes out?
 
:lol

it's like they want people to pump quarters into home consoles to keep playing games, just like the arcades..it's creeping toward that scenerio.

Maybe that was the big idea all along? :O
 
poppabk said:
DMCA is law which makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection, which would imply that copy protection is itself recognized as legal. The autodesk case appears to be mainly about restricting sales of legitimate working copies of autodesk that were protected by license agreements. He was suing for his right to sell them, not for his right to have a saleable copy, which I think is substantially different.
So the question comes down to whether DRM is illegal when it comes to the first sales doctrine. DD almost definitely constitutes a first sale, but it is hard to tell whether the first sales doctrine requires a product to be transferable. The current cases seem to revolve around whether a license is binding, DRM has not been addressed as far as I know, and the use of anti-trust legislation might be a stretch.

That's the point i'm trying to hammer. Licenses are not binding in case of a first sale doctrine as you can see by case law. I think, i got this point across so this will stop the "but..but...you agreed to a license" crowd. Although there might be places that licenses are binding but this seems to be the exception not the rule.

I don't think it's right when copyright holders are attempting to restrict use of copyrighted material in ways not covered by existing laws. Creators can certainly protect their works from alteration and illegal copying but the owners of legitimate copies certainly have rights too. One of those rights is the right to transfer ownership through sale.

Unfortunately, the legislators haven't yet codified the first sale doctrine to digital distribution but that doesn't mean that first sale doctrine do not apply on digital media.

NTIA was asked in 2001 by the US Congress to evaluate the effect of electronic commerce on The Copyright act. Specifically, section 109 (first sales) and section 117 (Limitation of exclusive rights: computer programs). report

Even if NTIA didn't see the need for an amendment to 109 or 117 with regard to digital media. They conclude their report with

NTIA DMCA Report said:
With respect to Section 109, there does appear to be limited consensus with respect to one particular application to digitally downloaded files. Both the proponents and the copyright community seem to agree that if the files are downloaded with the consent of the copyright owner, a "lawfully made copy or phonorecord" will have been created on the PC hard drive or tangible portable medium (such as a writeable CD). Thus, Section 109 would apply to the owner of that new digital copy or phonorecord.

lawfully made digital copy ---> Section 109 apply --> right to resell. Simple, no?

DRM or no DRM, you have a lawfully made copy.
 
BananaBomb said:
What is with all you people being scared of not being able to "physically own" anything? A disk is no more "physical" than a damn hard drive. I really don't see a difference except for convenience.
BananaBomb said:
You should not equate the ease of implementing DRM using a specific medium with the actual nature of the medium. I can give you fallout 2 from my GOG account on a USB drive right now if I wanted to - blame microsoft, not DD.
These discussions are always messy because of conflating these two topics.
It's understandable that, due to a lot of gamers' current experience with buying downloads from "major label" companies, they tend think of them as going hand-in-hand, but really this thread is 99% about DRM and only 1% about the act of moving data over the internet instead of on plastic.
 
Kagami said:
These discussions are always messy because of conflating these two topics.
It's understandable that, due to a lot of gamers' current experience with buying downloads from "major label" companies, they tend think of them as going hand-in-hand, but really this thread is 99% about DRM and only 1% about the act of moving data over the internet instead of on plastic.
The DRM present on console discs is still, in my opinion, the gold standard method: it is portable from system to system, it limits the ability of most players from making their own copies when well implemented, it allows consumer-friendly service such as defective product returns, game rentals, trading and borrowing, and used game resale, and it is durable. When I say 'durable' I mean that it works independent of expensive servers or other maintenance-costly mechanisms: as long as you have an operating console and a readable copy, the game will play.

By comparison everything on offer for digital download DRM, even Steam, is unfriendly to outright hostile.
 
Dan said:
If the future is DD, my purchases better not be tied to one console. I'll need to be able to redownload if my console/HDD fails.
Everyone has figured that out except Nintendo.
 
We'd be transferring nearly all the power over to publishers, limiting our options as consumers and almost certainly be paying more for less.

"Oh, but you'll have more shelf space (you know, because physical media can only be stored on shelves) and won't be required to get up off your ass anymore to switch games. Is that not progress, you caveman?"

I'll take physical along with digital.
 
Top Bottom