Game companies are asshole, story at eleven.

[luciazephyr]

Holy crap, you have to be kidding me.

Epic boss Mike Capps has told GI that secondhand game sales are a “huge” issue in the US, and he believes the American development industry will start making moves to combat it.

“I think DLC will be increasing in scope just because in the US we really need to make strides against the second-hand market,” he said.

Capps said that models involving restricting content to those who bought the retail product new are being mooted.

“The secondary market is a huge issue in the United States. Our primary retailer makes the majority of its money off of secondary sales, and so you’re starting to see games taking proactive steps toward that by… if you buy the retail version you get the unlock code,” he said.

“I’ve talked to some developers who are saying ‘If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free’. We don’t make any money when someone rents it, and we don’t make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it.”

I bet you good money this is coming from EA and Epic and other fucktards who are pissy about their anti-piracy measure backfiring.

Game Developers: SEE ICON. PREPARE FOR RETAILERS AND GAMERS JOINING TOGETHER TO BOYCOTT YOU MUTHAFUCKERS.

See, it's shit like this that will drive me back to video game piracy.

-Lucy

Comments

[nachomanlance.livejournal.com]

From communities I've seen and been in, Gamers have been finding any excuse to rebel and boycott gaming industries strictly for their anti-piracy stance and other personal reasons. I can't see it really happening soon, but its a nice thought.

They just better not don Guy Fawkes masks. That would annoy the living Hell out of me.

[lucia-tanaka.livejournal.com]

It.... sounds like your defending this. I assume I'm wrong...

Look, this system would royally fuck over gamers like me, who own zero online consoles and don't plan to change that fact anytime soon.

[nachomanlance.livejournal.com]

Of course I'm not defending it, I'm somewhat in the same boat (Wii is gone until past Xmas, i think). And I'm probably speaking for the wrong sort, but many gamers I've seen online are so dependent of what games they have that they won't go into any effort to fight to keep them, or hardly care about where the money goes to.

But I hope I'm wrong. I'm a big fan of watching big people fall when the smaller people outnumber their financial figures.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

This is amusing to me. I remember when this happened with CDs - artists and labels complaining about resale of used CDs. "We're not getting any money from resales! Injustice!"

And then MP3 sharing happened, and they stopped worrying about CD resale and started being grateful that someone bought the CD the first time around and only passed it on to one person.

But here's the thing: when you buy something, you own it. (Do we pay Van Gogh's estate a percentage when his work is resold? No. Because it DOESN'T BELONG TO HIM. It belongs to whoever is currently selling it.) That's the model we're working on. If you own it, you can resell it if there's a market, at whatever the market will pay. So if you don't want people reselling your stuff, make it so they don't want to - make it endlessly replayable or collectible or whatever. But the RIAA learned the hard way that trying to change this model just leads to a lot of people not paying you at all.

So now maybe gaming companies are going to learn this lesson. I just - do they not have memories? Researchers? Common sense? It's funny to me.

[lucia-tanaka.livejournal.com]

This, yes.

if you don't want people reselling your stuff, make it so they don't want to - make it endlessly replayable or collectible or whatever.

Some try this, yes. But more try SecuROM bullshit and that actually causes more piracy. I cannot tell you how many people I've met online who said they pirated BioShock or Spore to punish EA for their moronic anti-piracy measures.

My thought is that XBox is slowly turning to digital distribution- their XBLA lets you buy games that are then directly downloaded onto your console. Eventually, that will become commonplace I think.

[gundamtsubasa.livejournal.com]

By the way, I didn't pirate Spore because of their fucking SecuROM nonsense, but they did convince me to never buy another game from EA again, except maybe second hand because they don't get the money from the sale. Either way, it's not the price that sent me to a re-seller, it's their treating their customers like criminals that led me to the decision.

[lucia-tanaka.livejournal.com]

I totally get that.

I miss the old days of copy protection. Fourth wall breaking, need the packaging, clever bollocks stuff- that is understandable and cool copy protection.

I didn't pirate Spore because of their fucking SecuROM nonsense


:clears throat: I almost did before realizing I just didn't care that much about the game.

[gundamtsubasa.livejournal.com]

Oh boy, I just LOVE paying $50 to fucking a game!

[lucia-tanaka.livejournal.com]

I bet you Capps doesn't like rentals either.

I was gonna buy Gears of War for my 360, but now I've decided I'm gonna grab it used or not at all. Just to fuck with this guy.

[gundamtsubasa.livejournal.com]

No, SecuROM pretty much turns ANY game into a rental because you're totally at the mercy of EA's verification servers. If you buy a game with their crappy needs-to-be-online to verify you aren't a filthy pirate copy protection measures and then for some reason they decide to take down their verification server, every copy of any game that uses it is now a really expensive frisbee.

So, instead of owning the game, you're merely renting it for as long as EA chooses to allow you to play it.

[lucia-tanaka.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I heard a story about a military guy stationed where his internet was not constant and someone got him Spore and it was useless. He wrote EA about it, hoping for a non-SecuROMed copy or and exception or something, but they basically ignored him and he couldn't play.

Fuck EA.

[eyeofthestate.livejournal.com]

fuck all, I hardly play video games and this pisses me off.

You don't have any control over what people do with their privately owned property. FUCKING DEAL WITH IT YOU MAKE ENOUGH MONEY AS IT IS.

[lucia-tanaka.livejournal.com]

Especially bastards like EA. HAVING A MONOPOLY DOESN'T NET YOU GUYS ENOUGH DOSH?