Sony Patents a Way to Sabotage Used Game Market
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
So, how many of you are prepared to buy $60 console games without any chance of ever selling them?
Practices like this are why I am slowly transitioning into PC gaming on a laptop. Recently played through Assassin's Creed and didn't even notice a difference in my overall entertainment experience. What I did notice is not having to deal with a ton of firmware updates and waiting for the game to install additional data before I could play it.
The Extra Credits guys did something on this once. Basically a game shouldn't be sold as a fully priced unit, instead it would be made up of a cheaper core, with the rest as unlockable extras.04whim said:
For example take Black Ops 2. It has 3 parts - campaign, zombies, multiplayer.
Most people don't play all 3, they usually only play 1 or 2. So release a game with only a small part unlocked and allow players to pay to unlock the rest of the content already on the disc.
So lets say you sell a disk for $20 that has the first half of the campaign, a 10 game multiplayer demo and a 30 minute zombie trial unlocked. After that you can pay:
$15 for the rest of the campaign (and maybe unlock extra features like the weapon loadout customisation option)
$15 for unlimited multiplayer
$10 for unlimited zombies
Game still costs $60 for the whole package but only if you want it all so it's a better deal for players.
It also has the advantage of the developers getting more money. A physical copy sold in a store means developers only get around 50% (according to EC) as the store gets a cut, so they only get $30 out of each game. If they now sell $20 games and tell players to go buy unlock codes directly from their website they get all of the money from those code sales. So if a player buys all the unlocks the company has got $50 dollars out of the game instead of $30.
They can also use this to reward players, if you unlock all three you get a new bonus mission, a new multiplayer weapon/skin/badge or a new zombie map (maybe let the player choose). Little incentives to encourage a player to pay 'full' price for the game out of choice rather than necessity.
Only problem is it could discourage stores from selling games as they're making less off their cut of the sales, meaning they have to rely on preowned copies, which are now worth less as well as they have to go below a much lower threshold to stop players just buying new and reducing how much of a share they get.
Also whether "right to resell" is a theoretical excercise, and measures like this are technically legal, as they still recognise your right to resell the product - they merely made it physically impossible.Nicolaus99 said:
The EU still hasn't forced Digital Download services as Steam and Origin to implement the possibility for resale, so this new tech might not be initially struck down.
They might be forced to disable it if somebody brings it to court, but that's quite a way off.
This was in the rumor mill for along time people, I've known about for months since some did leak from the inside of Sony. Now that it actually a fact or confirmed that this software/hardware is panted exist, I'm really looking forward to the next gen of gaming.
I have the same problem with this that comes with the code activation. What if I just want to rent the damn game to try it out? See if I like it enough to keep playing the online? But nope. I can't even try out the full game because of these restrictions and now they are saying I can't even try it at all besides a demo that gives me a very small portion of the game? How is this fair?! I hate the way that console gaming is going all together. If they want better sales then they shouldn't make us pay $60 bucks a game and then charge us $40 bucks extra for the full thing with all the DLC they release for games.
While that is true it does not mean that companies have to give you the option to resell downloaded software. they can perfectly and legally make it so you cant resell that product.Nicolaus99 said:
They can do this with disk based games as well and there is nothing the courts can do about it because its not against any laws.
The car industry does. Used car lots specifically undercut new sales and I'm pretty sure all the car companies would rather everyone have to buy new cars all the time.Baldr said:
If they want to cripple the used market, then go for a cheaper and more convenient digital distribution service. There's a reason why people use Steam so much, it's just easier than going to a store.
DoveAlexa said:
I was trying to play a game in the same house as my brother that we have, on my laptop instead of the main PC. He never uses Steam his account was ages old, he struggled to remember the password or even what email address he would have used. I don't know why he would have turned steam guard on, he doesn't use steam and Empire is the only game he has on it, maybe there was some pop up that he just clicked yes to?Zipa said:
But that meant we were in danger of only being able to play a game we had a disk to, on one computer forever after. It was an unpleasant experience and so I can't give any favour to Steam for the DRM. At worst Sony's plan will work exactly the same, it locks it to an account, and you just sign in to an account on someones Playstation to play it. It's awful restrictive DRM but at its worst it's still equal to Steam DRM and they should be treated fairly equally. And at least with Sony it's hypothetical, they haven't actually put the system in place yet
this sounds suspiciously like it won't stop the thing it's designed to, and will cause problems for the ones it purportedly accepts.
Just like on computers.
Just like on computers.
I just don't see a point in using new windows os two to three years later unless it was on laptop/tablet computer.gibboss28 said:
