Rent-a-Game

Mwongozi writes: "British broadband users can now rent computer games to see if they are any good before they lay out the cash to buy the full game. This week, BT Openworld revealed details of its Software To Go scheme which lets people rent software by the hour, day or week. This includes games, graphics packages, educational titles and even programs that let you design your garden."

Comments

Blockbuster did this a while back...

[BigJimSlade]

...at least in Columbia, MD. And it was only games. You could actually go in and rent CD-ROM titles just like you would Playstation games. Guess they didn't rent too many because they don't do it any more.

... or the big bad ISDA shut them down :)

Re:Blockbuster did this a while back...

[BobGregg]

Software rental was made illegal in the US under the "Software Rental Amendments Act of 1990". That law was proposed because Congress felt that rental made it "too easy" to pirate software - sound familiar? Yeah, it's the same justification used for the DMCA. As far as I know, the rental prohibition is still on the books.

Re:Blockbuster did this a while back...

[MrDolby]

Im not sure about that. My company did some outsourced tech support for a company that tried rental pc games at blockbuster. Its probably the same people that the poster is talking about.

The way it worked was when you installed the game you had to be connected to an internet connection (I think they had a 800 dial up option too) then It would ask you for a code that came in the game box. This would register it with a server on their end that would start the time limit and tell the game locally how much time was left. I think it was about 7 days. Some of the game files were encrypted and there was a modified exe file. When you launched the game it would open up the renter's spash screen telling you how many days you have left and if you want more time or to buy the game. It was reletively secure and because the code was registered on their server you couldn't just reinstall the game or even use it on a different PC. Anyway I think they went out of business after a while.

Big Deal

[BigumD]

Electronics Boutique launched EB1.COM a while ago. It's the same service, availible to broadband users in the US/Canada. This is old news.

Looks familiar

[Wavefront]

This looks very similar to the streaming software technology developed by IntoCenter earlier this year. Electronic Boutique has made some interesting titles available through the IntoPlayer. I gave it a try a couple of months ago and it seemed to work quite well - although it only works on Windows 95/98/Me. The other odd thing is that it installs a SCSI controller into your hardware configuration; I suppose that is how they create an encrypted file system.

Personally, I think this concept is great - there's nothing I hate more than spending $60+ on a game and finding out that it sucks. However, I wonder how long it will be before someone cracks the encryption?

Re:Looks familiar

[GospelHead821]

It doesn't actually matter whether the encryption is cracked or not. That would be no worse than having one person buy the software and pirate it to everybody. I think the goal of this is to give everybody a taste of the game, in hopes that they'll enjoy it enough to pay for it, and not pirate it, even if they can. Sort of like I _could_ pirate Descent games, but I don't, because I think they're worth paying for. If I know that I'm not wasting my money, I'd be more likely to actually pay for software.

In Denmark

[Erwin-42]

One of the bigger ADSL ISPs in Denmark, CyberCity has done something similar at PlayingGod.dk.

There are fewer games but it seems cheaper: a game for 7 days for 50 kroner (about 4 UKP), 12 games for 30 days (they select the games) 150 kroner (12 UKP) and 5 games for 7 days for 100 kroner.

All games can be downloaded (they claim to use some sort of streaming technology so they are downloaded on demand rather than everything at once). If you are a CC ADSL customer, you can also temporarily upgrade your bandwidth for a price to speed up the download :)

Re:EB

[Uberwangen]

EB does take down your driver's license number (they ask to see it) and other assorted info. I used to work for EB and they would actually send out letters to people who abused this. Some stores would actually not accept items from certain customers.

Why Sony hasn't released PS2 Linux in USA

[yerricde]

Software rental was made illegal in the US under the "Software Rental Amendments Act of 1990" ... [which] is still on the books.

The citation is 17 USC 109(b). Note that section 109(b)(1)(B)(2) makes an explicit exception to allow software designed for video game consoles to be rented, defining video game console as "a limited purpose computer that is designed for playing video games and may be designed for other purposes."

This may have an adverse effect on rental for PlayStation 2 software, as Sony markets the PS2 console as a computer to get around several countries' import duties and other taxes. For instance, the Japanese PS2 can run a simple GNU/Linux system, and the European PS2 has a Basic interpreter. It could very well be the case that Sony has not released the PS2 Linux kit in the United States because it doesn't want the extra paperwork burden of licensing rental rights to all the game rental stores.