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How Many Times Should We Pay For Our Software?
An anonymous reader writes "An editorial at ZDNet talks about the concept of subscription licensing for software." From the article: "But the software industry is greedy enough to want to go even further. Ignoring the subtleties of DRM -- which snares users by glossing over the unseen ties between content and format -- vendors from BEA to Microsoft are eager to take up the blunt cudgel of subscription licensing, which merely asserts that, if you don't pay up again at the end of the year, your software stops working. The best way to deploy the mechanism of subscription licensing, of course, is as a hosted service, because it gives the software vendor the ability to instantly turn off the software-on-tap if the renewal is not forthcoming. Perhaps this explains Microsoft's new-found attraction to 'hosted everything' (whether or not it can work)."
I'm a pirate living in the UK; my parrot used to say that, unfortunatly it just died
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Actually, both publishers and developers are strongly looking at the possibilities of episodic content - you build a game engine, create a few levels, and sell it online for a relatively low price. Then, you keep releasing new content - episodes, so to speak - for low prices, and eventually you've essentially created a new game, except that it's broken up into episodes. Sort of like TV versus movies.
The Xbox 360 will have a "marketplace" which will help publishers make this a successful business model.
The reason developers and publishers are excited about episodic content is that it greatly reduces the risk in creating a game without necessarily reducing the reward. It costs millions to create a full-length current gen game, and if it doesn't sell well, the publisher is out millions of dollars. With episodic content, you're not spending as much money at once, and since it's all online less time (and therefore money) has to be spent on production of discs, boxes, etc. If something doesn't sell well, it can be dropped, whereas big hits could have more time and money put into them.
I am a bit suspicious about this, because it could result in a lot of mediocre titles (not that episodic content means that there won't be any regular full length games distributed on optical media.) However, it could also be a very good thing for gamers. Personally, I don't have much of a problem with the level of innovation in today's gaming market, but I know lots of people are always complaining about boring games that have been done over and over again and are really just slight variations on the same genre. The reason for this is that when you've got to put millions of dollars down on financing the development of a game, you don't really want to take risks. You want to go with what you know will sell well. This certainly does stifle creativity. Episodic content could help publishers move away from that mindset since it would cost a lot less to produce a single game "episode." Hence, it could lead to a lot more innovation. So there's an upside and a downside.
(/me waits to be modded "Offtopic.")
Dear Anonymous Coward, you're pathetic anyway, regardless of how bad this "twitter" may be. Nobody needs your "community service". In fact, you'll best serve this community by shutting up till you grow up a bit.