Bryon Daly wrote: > But here's more wierdness: according to this article > http://www.gamespot.com/news/6136091.html, GameStop stopped doing *any* > used > PC game trade-in business back in 2005. The used game market is almost > entirely for console-based games, not PC games. So why, then, is the > trade-in killing DRM targetted only at PC games? AFAIK, the Xbox 360 > versions of Mass Effect and Bioshock are not saddled with the > activation/install limits.
I thought GameStop got out of used PC sales not because of DRM but due to a falling market at the time. We've had GameStop stores locally drop PC games entirely and I'm under the impression that GameStop would have dropped out nationally if it weren't for a sizeable chunk of Games for Windows marketing cash from Microsoft. I don't know if that is entirely true, but I'm willing to bet it's not far off the mark... The remaining issue is that game consoles are locked down and there is no feasible access to creating your own discs, but CD and DVD duplication on the PC is easy and cheap... Most modern labyrinthine DRM packages are hacks to make the PC market more like the console market. On the one hand the "easy" answer is to switch to sterile computing environments more like consoles (the "trusted computing" platforms) or to figure out better ways of dealing with piracy (potentially including outright ignoring it and accepting it as a natural loss)... but neither answer is actually "easy" and no one has a good solution just yet. PCs wouldn't be PCs if pushed into the monocultures that trusted computing implies, and no one has very good ideas that would work across the board when it comes to dissuading pirates or upselling pirated copies. > I like it too, as a nice start. But it's realy pretty wishy-washy on > its > wording for many of the rights it lists: Several listed rights say > "Gamers > have a right to demand <xxxx>". This is NOT the same as saying "Gamers > have > a right to <xxxx>". All it boils down to is that we're allowed to > *strongly > ask* for <xxxx>. Gee thanks! I take it that it does imply some sort of listening/promotion of gamer concerns... So maybe it just means "gamers can strongly ask" and "companies shall strongly listen", but it's way better than the companies that ignore polls, public discussions, and sometimes censor free speech on their own forums to ignore their own problems. The fun part about listening is that it can lead to sympathizing and who knows where that could lead in some cases. > > Right now, > > I can let my brother play my Steam games by letting him borrow my > login > > information (at my own risk, admittedly), but it would be nice if I > could > > simply from Steam "Loan these games to Steam friend x" or "Give these > games > > to Steam friend y". Adding in simple arbitration for game trades > could be > > cool and it would be simple from there to create an after-market for > game > > trading and even use that to put extra money into the pockets of the > > DEVELOPERS, rather than, say, the GameStop Pawn Shop empire. > > > This would be great, but I doubt it will ever happen. I think it will happen. I figure that at some point a) people are going to band together and demand there first sale doctrine rights in a court of law, or b) some company is going to open up this support, grab a bunch of sales from happy customers, and goad other companies to follow suit. If I were to put money on it, I'm betting that Steam is the closest of all DDNs right now to offering these types of consumer tools. Steam has a limited ability to gift games already (you can buy a game with your account as a gift for someone else's account, or (at least for recent Valve bundles) if you buy a pack that contains a game you already own in your Steam account you can gift the extra copy to someone else's account. It's certainly not a far throw, technically, from the current gift-giving system to something bigger and more robust. Plus, Valve still pretends they aren't a publisher and are in tune with the plight of the small developer, and in that regard it makes perfect sense to build a developer-friendly, consumer-friendly post-market system. Unfortunately I don't have a crystal ball, so all of this is entirely speculation, but I'm of the opinion that you talk about cool ideas long enough and you never know who will hear or how the ball will get rolling... -- --Max Battcher-- http://worldmaker.net _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
