Jimquisition: SimShitty

Waffle_Man

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Unless they alter the model. Which I already said. Which they're already doing. This is a completely moot point by now.
Well, I don't think we're going to make any more progress in this situation because we seem to be a fundamental disagreement about how good the industry is at learning from mistakes. So I guess we'll have to continue disagreeing and wait to see what happens. In the mean time, it's been fun.
 

Minjen

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Mar 15, 2011
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Why doesn?t anyone ever mention that in 10 years the servers are going to be long gone anyway, making online transactions/always online/unlocking for single player games worthless and with that the purchased product useless?

You can still play those old games like on NES and Atari provided the hardware is OK, but with these online only games you only can play them for a limited amount of years and if your online connection isn't shit.
 

Novuake

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Strazdas said:
Treblaine said:
Novuake said:
What everyone seems to be missing(and yes I am aware this is a far off concern), is that in lets say 5 years time when EA goes bankrupt or just decides to end support for the game, what happens then? Our 60$ goes down the drain?
That doesn't even have to happen, they could simply decide to not spend any more money on it.

Microsoft still exist, yet they pull server support for Halo 2. And that's a huge game. Slightly lesser games rarely have server support longer than 4 years.

Cod hasn't exactly had server support pulled, but they have given up any kind of maintenance. COD WaW is utterly inundated with hackers and devs are doing nothing to seal security breaches that allow these hackers in.
4 years is long, a long of RTSes i play dropped server support after 2-3 years and community had to mod the game to allow user-created lobby to exist, and some poor folk is paying for it. problem is, some of thse games are dfesigned in such a way that you can play via direct IP without these server services, which is bull, but is not a new thing. gaming is moving very fast and dropping server support is nothing new and is to be expected. you do not buy a game for 60 years. you buy a 5 years license to play it (or whatever years they decide to let it run).
F#>k that hogwash, I play games YEARS after they are release. I am a nostalgic one, I have a dedicated Win98 machine for some older games that just will not work on later systems. Anyway... DRM has to go, but it won't and that makes me sad.
 

Strazdas

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May 28, 2011
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Novuake said:
F#>k that hogwash, I play games YEARS after they are release. I am a nostalgic one, I have a dedicated Win98 machine for some older games that just will not work on later systems. Anyway... DRM has to go, but it won't and that makes me sad.
Oh, i do play games long after, and thats how i discovered those peoblems. want to play empire earth? sorry, we clsoed servers down in 2008.

the only game i was not able to make run on my win7 system was Scarface, and that was because my graphic card somehow magically didnt support the old pixel shader technique the game used. appears to be a windowns issue though as forums claim it woud work on XP, but i didnt want to play the game enough to emulate xp at that time.
 

Jimothy Sterling

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Apr 18, 2011
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Nice episode, but I disagree with the "wait a week or two"... sorry, but what's the point? You're giving EA $50 either way. At least wait until the game hits the bargain bin.

I, for one, just noticed I had a huge itch to play some city builder game and reinstalled Sim City 4. To be honest, I don't see a reason to play the new Sim City anymore. Yes, the graphics are better and I'm sure the new simulation engine is neat, but smaller cities forcing you to develop an entire region just to get something going and other stupid design ideas (like the street size determining how densely a zone can be populated) make me actually prefer Sim City 4 without even playing the new one.
 

Lightknight

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Nov 26, 2008
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matches81 said:
Nice episode, but I disagree with the "wait a week or two"... sorry, but what's the point? You're giving EA $50 either way. At least wait until the game hits the bargain bin.
Actually, hitting the initial sales number makes a huge difference. It will actually scare them and could potentially be more successful than our attempts at boycotts have been. Someone telling you not to buy your favorite series is an ass. Someone telling you to wait a couple weeks in protest is being savy. Those first couple of weeks are their most important weeks and you stand to benefit a lot from waiting. You avoid the early bugs and frustrations, you send a message, and you get to know more fully if the game is a bomb or not.

To get your message across to big producers like this, you have to think like them. The stuff that scares them is bad PR and bad sales.
 

Monsterfurby

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Aircross said:
I'm glad I didn't get it.

*installs Sim City 3000 Unlimited and Sim City 4*
I'm glad I did. It's a good game.

That doesn't exonerate EA from the deserved blame for the disaster, but once that's over with, it's actually an enjoyable experience.
 

dbenoy

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Jul 7, 2011
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Costia said:
Sure they will be valued and praised and given great jobs, but unfortunately they wont get paid.
Please describe me how an artist is going to get paid if his creations are available for everyone for free. Where is the money to pay them will be coming from? Do you expect them to live on donations?
And why restrict this only to copyrights? Being an artist is a job like any other. Everyone should be doing their jobs for free and relying on the praise and social value they get from a job well done.
We don't need to resort to hypotheticals here. There are numerous examples of companies making mad money in the face (Often because of) their creation being copied frequently.

Also, nobody said anything about "free". Copyright prevents people from copying things. It doesn't facilitate the ability to charge money for software.

Plus, even if it did ensure more money for artists (which it doesn't) and even if it wasn't something that destroyed artists's ability to innovate (which it is), then is still would not be justified. Just because you want artists to be richer doesn't mean it's okay to extract that money from peaceful people at the gun-point of the court system.
 

dbenoy

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RicoADF said:
Copyright and IP/trademarks are 2 different things. Copyright as its supose to be used is a good thing. its ment to ensure the creator gets paid for their work. US corporate system screws that over though.
Not to nitpick, but copyrights and trademarks are both subsets of 'intellectual property', or IP.

How does the US corporate system screw over the intentions of copyright? Are you referring to how they're extending the term of the copyrights nigh indefinitely?
 

dbenoy

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shadow skill said:
1. Jobs of any kind are not actually connected to survival. That we humans have a fetish for this kind of thing, is our own problem a purely mental one at that.

2. The artist is in possession of a skill, the skill is valuable because not everyone has it. The productions requiring said skill were never the thing of value as far as the artist was concerned, his or her skill was.
An artist who thinks that his or her productions are the thing to monetize is simply doing it wrong. It is not the job of consumers of his or her productions (Commodities that are subject to mass production.) to shield him or her from this by kneecapping themselves.
1. Here's one episode in a short web series explaining why jobs aid in prosperity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yOHjRThM_o The same principles show how humans are able to survive in such great numbers thanks to jobs, or more accurately, the specialized division of labor.

2. Definitely. If you're talented at making games, and you want to make a living with it, then you should be coming up with a strategy that doesn't involve victimizing peaceful people whose 'crime' was making copies of things.
 

Novuake

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Strazdas said:
Novuake said:
F#>k that hogwash, I play games YEARS after they are release. I am a nostalgic one, I have a dedicated Win98 machine for some older games that just will not work on later systems. Anyway... DRM has to go, but it won't and that makes me sad.
Oh, i do play games long after, and thats how i discovered those peoblems. want to play empire earth? sorry, we clsoed servers down in 2008.

the only game i was not able to make run on my win7 system was Scarface, and that was because my graphic card somehow magically didnt support the old pixel shader technique the game used. appears to be a windowns issue though as forums claim it woud work on XP, but i didnt want to play the game enough to emulate xp at that time.
Yeah I found the same. Windows ends up being the issue. Dungeon Keeper 2 was one of the worst for me. JUST REFUSED to work with an AMD card and Win 7 64 bit. That is when I decided its time for a dedicated machine.
 

dbenoy

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Jul 7, 2011
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Lord_Jaroh said:
dbenoy said:
This sort of DRM is the solution to "piracy". It's the only truly effective scheme. They take a significant chunk of the game (in this case, the actual town simulation algorithms), and don't actually give it to you in the box. They keep that part on their own servers where they can control it.

No way to 'crack' that. Perfect protection from copying.
1 - The calculations aren't done server side, they are all actually on your computer.
2 - Pirates are not your customers, so don't design your game around them.
3 - If I buy the game, Do not saddle me with DRM designed to keep pirates at bay. I am not a pirate by the simple fact that I bought your game!
4 - Piracy is not a problem. It is a scapegoat.
1 - I stand corrected. I looked into it and that seems to be the case.

2 & 3 - I can understand EA's reasoning though. Theoretically, they might make more sales if their DRM is good enough. It's false to claim that 0% of people who 'pirate' the game would otherwise have purchased the game, just like it's false to claim 100%. The question becomes whether the customers gained from the DRM being effective exceeds the customers lost from the DRM being obtrusive.

Although, there's something to be said for sacrificing sales in the short term, in order to build good will from your customers in the long term. Plus it's nice to not be an asshole. So I would recommend against intrusive DRM in all circumstances.

I, for one, will either "pirate" this game if the DRM fails, or not play it at all if the DRM succeeds, because EA are being assholes, and not just about this, so I'm one case example of the DRM doing more harm than good.

4 - Copyright needs to be abolished entirely, so that scapegoat no longer exists.
 

dbenoy

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Costia said:
Ashoten said:
Yes they should rely on donations......what did you expect me to back down? People can broker resources when they realize the value of their product. There are plenty of people on crowd funding, you-tube, blip, and the internet in general that make a decent living off of donations. Because the reward motivation system for human creativity is at its peek when a person is working for the sake of being creative. Rewards actually diminish the overall product when profit becomes the objective. Capitalism works up to a point but it also needs to be reigned in or only the wealthy will have creative freedom.
Did you ever live off donations? It's really nice of you to suggest other's should live like that. I suggest you try it yourself and see how it goes.
Not only corporations are greedy. People are greedy too. If you can get something for free, most people won't donate. Just look at Wikipedia. Everyone appreciates him, everybody likes Wikipedia and values the effort. Still, 99.9% don't donate a cent. The guy needs to beg for money to keep that service up and running.
I think artists should get paid. They shouldn't need to beg for money to buy food and pay their rent.
Another thing is reliability. When artists are getting paid for a job, they get paid even if the product fails. Remember that making a game is not a one man opertaion. An artist might invest 3-5 years of his life to make assets for a game, and then get nothing from donations because the programmer or story writer screwed up or people simply didn't like the game.
And it seems you ignored the second part. why only artists?
Donations are one option, but there are others.

Crowd funding was mentioned as well, but those aren't really donations. That's just a job like any other where money is exchanged for labor. And it gets around the perceived problem of the free rider, because even a greedy person will contribute if it's the difference between a product existing or not.

Also, you don't have to rely on donations at all when you offer services (or other products). For example, creative people frequently sell t-shirts and doodads thanks exclusively to the popularity of their artistic creations.

As for services, many creators and distributors operate on a service model. For example Valve with their source engine games, and Blizzard with World of Warcraft, and RedHat Linux, etc (numerous examples) offering a constant stream of updates and new content in exchange for a subscription fee, which doesn't rely on copyright at all.

These aren't hypothetical examples. Copyright is not necessary and may even be worse for trying to make money (Unless you want to release high budget shovelware or just lean back while royalty cheques roll in, without continuing to create and innovate. You need copyright in those cases.)

So that's how copyright doesn't help anyone.. let's look at how it hurts! I can't score a game I create with popular music, not even 'Happy Birthday', because there's an apparatus of lawyers looking to extract money from me if I try. I can't sample imagery from other elements of pop culture, I can't even create an entirely unique original work that happens to be a sequel to some copyrighted game.

Take a look at all the public domain stories that got turned into classics, constantly getting reimagined, like Alice in Wonderland, and Snow White, and such. Copyright prevents that activity. Just imagine how many amazing re-imaginings that have been lost forever thanks to copyright. Chances are you have a game that you loved that got cancelled, and now thanks to the legal force of copyright, that will never be remedied.

And let's say you accidentally include something that's been copyrighted. How am I supposed to know that the 'I Have a Dream' speech is still copyrighted and I will be sued if you include portions of it in my game? Not to mention copyright's even nastier cousin, the software patent. This creates a 'chilling effect' where people are terrified to make their art. The first time they get a cease and desist letter that will be it, and humanity loses one more talented creator thanks to intellectual property.

So, let's say theoretically that copyright was some sort of benefit to creators, and that somehow it managed to not be a destructive force against creativity. (Hypothetically of course, because that's exactly what happens). It STILL isn't right to use them.

Just because you feel that money should be put into the hands of creative people doesn't justify the use of a system that extracts that money from peaceful people whose only "crime" is making copies. Your desire to favor game makers with riches doesn't entitle you to use the force of the court system to extract those riches from others. If you want them to have money, then give them YOUR money.

Think about what happens to people who refuse to pay when the copyright system tries to extract money from them. They may be thrown out of their house, or even locked away, and if they refuse to go when they're locked away, they could even get shot in the process. Are you willing to say that it's justifiable to use the threat of death on people just to fund your favorite game franchise?

It's easy to say that kind of reaction is justified if someone is a murderer or a rapist, but for copying games? Really?
 

Lightknight

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Nov 26, 2008
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dbenoy said:
1 - The calculations aren't done server side, they are all actually on your computer.
2 - Pirates are not your customers, so don't design your game around them.
3 - If I buy the game, Do not saddle me with DRM designed to keep pirates at bay. I am not a pirate by the simple fact that I bought your game!
4 - Piracy is not a problem. It is a scapegoat.
1. The calculations aren't done server side for solo games. I'll point out though that if you count software verification and checking for cheater as calculations then it technically does do "calculations". I wouldn't be suprised if Maxis worded it this way on purpose.

2. Not true. Pirates are lost revenue opportunities and the vast majority of pirates aren't the ones who actually rip the games and make them available. If you prevent the ones who rip them to make them available then the other pirates who just use them to get games are now only able to get it legally. That ipso facto makes non-customers into customers. Don't forget that some people download games illegally for no other reason other than they can.

3. The DRM verifies that you did buy the game. There's no other way to verify that other than by looking. In the old days this wasn't done at all until piracy became rampant and it was only done once until key codes were easily findable online. Developers do deserve to make their money and to protect their goods from being stolen, but I think we all agree that always on is the mallet swatting the fly (once a week checkins, for example, should suffice). So your comment doesn't make sense. They cannot determine that you bought the game without DRM and they don't know if they shouldn't saddle you with DRM unless they use DRM. So... yeah.

4. Piracy is both a problem and a scapegoat. The two are not mutually exclusive.
 

Lightknight

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Nov 26, 2008
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Surely I can't be the only one that imagines Jim watching this news unfold over a glass of wine and classical music playing in the background.
 

Costia

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Jul 3, 2011
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dbenoy said:
Costia said:
Sure they will be valued and praised and given great jobs, but unfortunately they wont get paid.
Please describe me how an artist is going to get paid if his creations are available for everyone for free. Where is the money to pay them will be coming from? Do you expect them to live on donations?
And why restrict this only to copyrights? Being an artist is a job like any other. Everyone should be doing their jobs for free and relying on the praise and social value they get from a job well done.
We don't need to resort to hypotheticals here. There are numerous examples of companies making mad money in the face (Often because of) their creation being copied frequently.

Also, nobody said anything about "free". Copyright prevents people from copying things. It doesn't facilitate the ability to charge money for software.

Plus, even if it did ensure more money for artists (which it doesn't) and even if it wasn't something that destroyed artists's ability to innovate (which it is), then is still would not be justified. Just because you want artists to be richer doesn't mean it's okay to extract that money from peaceful people at the gun-point of the court system.
First paragraph:
First, give me those examples. Second "there are companies" doesn't mean that most of the industry can do it. It can work well with certain type of games and media. But it will kill most of it.
For games it will make micro-transaction based, online only games the norm. And while i like TF2 , I don't want games like Skyrim to use this model. But without copyright protection this will be the only reliable model to pay the artist's rent.
Second paragraph:
It does imply free because if you can copy it without having to pay the creator. If you can get it for free without breaking the law or doing something for it - it's free even you can choose to pay for it.
Third paragraph:
So basically you just don't want to pay. It's okay for artist to beg for money and live on donations as long as you get your paycheck elsewhere and get all the games you want (which required a lot of hard work) for free.
And again, you ignore my question.
Why are artists special? why should you be payed with a paycheck and they shouldn't?
 

Costia

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Jul 3, 2011
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dbenoy said:
Costia said:
Ashoten said:
Yes they should rely on donations......what did you expect me to back down? People can broker resources when they realize the value of their product. There are plenty of people on crowd funding, you-tube, blip, and the internet in general that make a decent living off of donations. Because the reward motivation system for human creativity is at its peek when a person is working for the sake of being creative. Rewards actually diminish the overall product when profit becomes the objective. Capitalism works up to a point but it also needs to be reigned in or only the wealthy will have creative freedom.
Did you ever live off donations? It's really nice of you to suggest other's should live like that. I suggest you try it yourself and see how it goes.
Not only corporations are greedy. People are greedy too. If you can get something for free, most people won't donate. Just look at Wikipedia. Everyone appreciates him, everybody likes Wikipedia and values the effort. Still, 99.9% don't donate a cent. The guy needs to beg for money to keep that service up and running.
I think artists should get paid. They shouldn't need to beg for money to buy food and pay their rent.
Another thing is reliability. When artists are getting paid for a job, they get paid even if the product fails. Remember that making a game is not a one man opertaion. An artist might invest 3-5 years of his life to make assets for a game, and then get nothing from donations because the programmer or story writer screwed up or people simply didn't like the game.
And it seems you ignored the second part. why only artists?
Donations are one option, but there are others.

Crowd funding was mentioned as well, but those aren't really donations. That's just a job like any other where money is exchanged for labor. And it gets around the perceived problem of the free rider, because even a greedy person will contribute if it's the difference between a product existing or not.

Also, you don't have to rely on donations at all when you offer services (or other products). For example, creative people frequently sell t-shirts and doodads thanks exclusively to the popularity of their artistic creations.

As for services, many creators and distributors operate on a service model. For example Valve with their source engine games, and Blizzard with World of Warcraft, and RedHat Linux, etc (numerous examples) offering a constant stream of updates and new content in exchange for a subscription fee, which doesn't rely on copyright at all.

These aren't hypothetical examples. Copyright is not necessary and may even be worse for trying to make money (Unless you want to release high budget shovelware or just lean back while royalty cheques roll in, without continuing to create and innovate. You need copyright in those cases.)

So that's how copyright doesn't help anyone.. let's look at how it hurts! I can't score a game I create with popular music, not even 'Happy Birthday', because there's an apparatus of lawyers looking to extract money from me if I try. I can't sample imagery from other elements of pop culture, I can't even create an entirely unique original work that happens to be a sequel to some copyrighted game.

Take a look at all the public domain stories that got turned into classics, constantly getting reimagined, like Alice in Wonderland, and Snow White, and such. Copyright prevents that activity. Just imagine how many amazing re-imaginings that have been lost forever thanks to copyright. Chances are you have a game that you loved that got cancelled, and now thanks to the legal force of copyright, that will never be remedied.

And let's say you accidentally include something that's been copyrighted. How am I supposed to know that the 'I Have a Dream' speech is still copyrighted and I will be sued if you include portions of it in my game? Not to mention copyright's even nastier cousin, the software patent. This creates a 'chilling effect' where people are terrified to make their art. The first time they get a cease and desist letter that will be it, and humanity loses one more talented creator thanks to intellectual property.

So, let's say theoretically that copyright was some sort of benefit to creators, and that somehow it managed to not be a destructive force against creativity. (Hypothetically of course, because that's exactly what happens). It STILL isn't right to use them.

Just because you feel that money should be put into the hands of creative people doesn't justify the use of a system that extracts that money from peaceful people whose only "crime" is making copies. Your desire to favor game makers with riches doesn't entitle you to use the force of the court system to extract those riches from others. If you want them to have money, then give them YOUR money.

Think about what happens to people who refuse to pay when the copyright system tries to extract money from them. They may be thrown out of their house, or even locked away, and if they refuse to go when they're locked away, they could even get shot in the process. Are you willing to say that it's justifiable to use the threat of death on people just to fund your favorite game franchise?

It's easy to say that kind of reaction is justified if someone is a murderer or a rapist, but for copying games? Really?
Crowd funding is just like a pre-order: you are paying for an unknown. While this model is getting a lot of media attention - if you look at the numbers - it doesn't produce much income, and it is still as unreliable as donations. Do try to crowd fund your own project before you suggest the whole world should do it. Like living on donations - its a lot harder than you think it is.
The reason they can sell T-shirts is that copyrights exist. Lets say i make a popular game, now anyone can print t-shirts whith my characters logo's etc. So what will happen is that the guy who runs the t-shirt factory will sell them directly to stores. why should he sell me, and then let me sell to the stores? By selling directly to the stores he will get my cut of the profit. The reason merchandise is profitable now is copyrights. If i made a game - only i am allowed to sell game-related merchandise , or sell the rights.
Sure, subscription games will work. Free to play will work. So whatever already works now will continue to work. It's just that everything else will collapse.
How does copyright help sell junk? If it's junk why would anyone pay for it in the first place? If the royalty checks roll in - it means whatever was copyrighted is useful. (Don't confuse it with patents. That system totally is broken, at least for non medical stuff)
Please don't confuse patent law with copyright. They protect different things in different ways.
How would you go about accidentally including copyrighted stuff? It's like accidentally building a house in an area that isn't yours.
When you create some thing - you know how it was created - because you did it. Did you put there something that wasn't done by you? If yes - you need to make sure it isn't copyrighted. You can't verify? don't use it.Very simple.

The last paragraph is just silly. I could say this as well:
Think about what happens to people who refuse to pay when the local supermarket tries to extract money from them. They may be thrown out of their house, or even locked away, and if they refuse to go when they're locked away, they could even get shot in the process. Are you willing to say that it's justifiable to use the threat of death on people just to fund your favorite food franchise?

Can you explain how copyright kills creativity? Like a concrete example? The way I see it, it actually encourages creativity. When you aren't allowed to copy someone else's solution\idea the law forces you to innovate - to make something new of your own. Without copyright, most people would just use whatever somebody else already done. So I thinkk that it slows progress down, but encourages innovation.
 

waj9876

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What's the point of having two links that lead to the same video anyway?

No seriously, why?
 

dbenoy

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Jul 7, 2011
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Costia said:
First paragraph:
First, give me those examples. Second "there are companies" doesn't mean that most of the industry can do it. It can work well with certain type of games and media. But it will kill most of it.
For games it will make micro-transaction based, online only games the norm. And while i like TF2 , I don't want games like Skyrim to use this model. But without copyright protection this will be the only reliable model to pay the artist's rent.
Second paragraph:
It does imply free because if you can copy it without having to pay the creator. If you can get it for free without breaking the law or doing something for it - it's free even you can choose to pay for it.
Third paragraph:
So basically you just don't want to pay. It's okay for artist to beg for money and live on donations as long as you get your paycheck elsewhere and get all the games you want (which required a lot of hard work) for free.
And again, you ignore my question.
Why are artists special? why should you be payed with a paycheck and they shouldn't?
"Some businesses would have trouble in my opinion" is not a justification for copyright. People who make games are much better at figuring out how to make it profitable than you or I, and they'll find a way. I've given a multitude of examples of it happening already. Microtransactions are only one model that already exists, and who knows how many don't exist yet.

Thankfully for me this is a winning battle :) People already act like copyright doesn't exist, so businesses will either need to adapt to that or die, so the survival of business in the face of copyright abolition is a moot point. It's going down that road no matter what the law says. Now it's time to abolish copyright entirely and stop the harm it's doing.

As for not wanting to pay, what's with the ad hominem? My position is correct whether I'm a greedy prick who never pays a cent to artists or I'm the most generous person in the world. And, if you want to evoke sympathy for artists, why not the ones whose careers are destroyed by intellectual property?