The problem is that in destroying the current industry model you are willingly giving the publishers enough power to compensate and that compensation comes in the form willingly allowing them to take away consumer rights as they utilize digital distribution as a mean to destroy the used market. Now I have discussed this enough times, but apparently it bears repeating. Giving away ownership rights, allowing publishers/developers to hoard all the money from gaming by turning it into a subscription rather than a product is
NOT a good thing. It does not matter how it is spun. It does not matter how many positives you can illustrate. It is a bad thing. Yes obviously it hurts the consumer by killing off used/rental markets and we are already seeing that death happen because of how much people have already accepted digital distribution. But it does not end there and this is the painfully truth filled nugget that people want you to not pay attention to because it destroys the counter argument. It literally takes an entire industry and eliminates thousands upon thousands of jobs, between gamestop employees that act as the publishers intended target, to the collateral damage of Shippers, warehouse, physical production, public advertisement, general retail such as target and walmart who stock games (as with no physical games to sell thats a large portion of stock that gets sold daily, so less need for someone to be working that counter, and you can get by with 2 on staff rather than 4) Gamefly would be eradicated as well as a painful chunk out of local businesses still trying to operate under media rental and sooo much more.
People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.
Even here this is something that has so much bearing on this situation. Trying to provide the industry security at all the patently false claim that used/piracy/rental markets are all killing the industry by ensuring the money goes to those producing the games we all know and love is NEVER going to give the industry security. It simply cant. Its not possible. You cannot force security into something that either was not in jeopardy, or its problems stem from other underlying internal issues. YOU DONT FIX PROBLEMS BY ZERG RUSHING THEM WITH MONEY! So allowing the profits from a game to be forcefully redirected you wont see some glorious proliferation of that studios performance. Allowing digital distribution to subjugate rights does not cure the disease. Its an example of killing the disease by killing the patient. And when it is all said and done? The industry will be no more healthy (and arguably less healthy) than it is today, yet, in the process people willingly gave up value in the products they were buying, they allowed sub industries to be raped and obliterated, they allowed those who are already more than wealthy enough to use that wealth to eliminate fair and equitable competition. Gutting the variety of options one has to obtain their desired media.
Jim, I think we all understand. your clearly an apple fanboy. Youve made it abundantly clear you adore apple as well as their structure. But tell me Jim, Even though you can buy the stuff you want without having to buy junk you dont, what happens when your tastes change. What happens when you look back on digital purchases you made that make you think, My god, was I on drugs when I decided to buy that? Did I ever really Like that? What is your recourse? Can you sell that embarrassing track out of your list? Do you even have a method to? Yet, even if when you purchased it, even if you bought it on sale, you bought it based on the sale price of a physical comparative that intrinsically has less than half the value. Example. A typical CD runs 12-15 USD. Typically a music CD will house 10-15 music tracks. So just giving a rough estimate, that breaks down to 1$ per track. Much like apples lauded pricing structure. However, you paid 1$ for that track with literally half the value already extracted because part of the value is if you do not like it , you can get some of your value back in trade/sell. So you gladly accepted the base rate of the physical model, with literally half the features extracted. The exact same model holds true with games. Now ask, what benefits does apple receive because of this model? As the service becomes more pervasive do you see the track prices go down? Do you see the removal of apples withholding of the right to suspend your account without reason or recompense? Do you see a better product in any way shape or form? No. But what you do see is more restrictions being placed on what sort of content can be purchased. You see more restrictions on how when where that content can be used. You see apple dictating how its service is used from front to back regardless if its a feature someone was using or not. You see Apple with the freedom to hold your content hostage if they wanted to do so.
So why would anyone willingly promote giving the people putting content in your hands the freedom to do this? They have laws for this. THIS is racketeering and should only be viewed as such. Today its "you keep your content so long as you behave the way we want you to behave", and where will we be a decade from now in this fully digital distribution world? "If you buy this content, you are buying a license that we guarantee for 1 year. We will still charge you the same amount as we did yesterday, but you will have to repay that amount once a year if you expect to continue accessing the license we gave you" And before anyone says anything without actually thinking about this Go check the Origin EULA, Find the provision that dictates that your license can be revoked at any time EA Origin decides to retire content. Its literally racketeering. So the real question at this end is, why is it that the DoJ isnt busting down doors in Redwood city, seizing content, instead of doing it in Hong Kong or New Zealand? Simply put, it is already happening, and it will continue to happen as long as people with more money than sense continue to voluntarily waive their own rights in favor of irresponsible instant gratification.
Honestly I cant get the analogy out of my head. Its almost akin to if the government decided to outlaw sex, in exchange of free access to porn and masturbation as an equal alternative. Thats how people need to start viewing this matter, because that is in essence much closer to the reality than what people with a vested interest in you believing what they tell you is.
So lets not use the same typical argument of "Steam would never do that, they would not piss off their consumers like that" because that argument is simply not valid. We SEE how this is done. Its not some instantaneous switch that gets flicked thus pissing everyone off. Its a slow methodical transition that by the time you notice whats happened its already too late. A decade ago did anyone think it was a realistic possibility for games to be transitioned to a "pay to win" model? Yet after a decade of DRM>DLC>Project 10$> Cutting out content for used buyers> DLC functioning as Pay 2 win.we are starting to see its presence more and more frequently. It can happen, it does happen, It WILL happen, just on such a gradual slope. These are people using foresight. The real problem above all others is that we as consumers, do not use foresight at all.
