Slashdot Mirror
Sony Joins the Offensive Against Pre-Owned Games
BanjoTed writes "In a move to counter sales of pre-owned games, EA recently revealed DLC perks for those who buy new copies of Mass Effect 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Now, PlayStation platform holder Sony has jumped on the bandwagon with similar plans for the PSP's SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3. '[Players] will need to register their game online before they are able to access the multiplayer component of the title. UMD copies will use a redeemable code while the digital version will authenticate automatically in the background. Furthermore ... anyone buying a pre-owned copy of the game will be forced to cough up $20 to obtain a code to play online."
If memory serves, isn't the PSP one of those systems it's (relatively) easy to pirate for?
I have a feeling Sony has traded getting no money from resales to getting no money because everyone's downloading a cracked version.
If I don't want to play online, am I allowed to return the code to Sony for a $20 refund? I should be.
Put identity in the browser.
So many people think that the used game market is somehow harming the new game market. They are completely wrong. Through the magic of a priori reasoning, I know that you cannot be harmed merely because you're not getting what you are not entitled.
Let me explain. Wouldn't it be awesome if your coworkers gave you a cut of their salary, for no reason whatsoever? Wouldn't it be great if you walked into a bank one day and the teller decided to give you a portion of the bank's holdings, for no reason whatsoever?
Yep, that would be awesome, no doubt about it. But are you being harmed because your coworkers and bank are not giving you money you don't deserve? Nope.
That's what's going on with the new game and used game markets. The new game industry somehow feels entitled to profits from the used game market. Despite having absolutely no legal basis for such entitlement. In the United States we have the right of first sale. What that means is that we can sell what we bought, even if what we bought was copyrighted material. So we have a right to sell our DVDs, CD, and used games.
Of course someone will say that my coworker/bank analogies fail because they don't take into consideration that the game industry created the games that the used game market is selling. If you think that, you're completely missing the point.
The fact that the game industry originally created the game is completely irrelevant to whether it is entitled to any profits from secondary or tertiary sales. It does not have such a right to profits. None whatsoever. No more than General Motors has a right to profit from the sale of the used Chevy truck you just sold. GM created the truck, does it deserve a cut from every subsequent sale? What about your house, should the contractor get a cut when you sell it, when it's sold 100 years from now? (I live in a house originally built in 1856, exactly who am I supposed to pay when I resell and move out?)
My point is, much like how you have no rights to your coworkers pay, and much like how you have no rights to your bank's holdings, the new game industry has no right to profits from the used game market. None whatsoever.
Of course the new game industry outright lies and claims that the used game market "Is profiting from the sale of our games." It's a lie because once the new game industry sells a particular copy of the game; it is no longer their game. They have absolutely no ownership right in that particular copy. So to accuse the used game market of taking or stealing their property is an outright lie.
I have no doubt that someone will argue that the new game industry is being harmed because of lost sales. I.e., consumers are buying from the used game market rather than from the new game industry which is causing the new game industry to lose money.
Let's get one thing straight: Losing sales to a competitor is not harm. It's competition.
The new game industry's claim that it's being harmed from the used game market is as asinine as McDonalds claiming it is being harmed by Burger King.
Now certainly if Burger King was unfairly or illegally competing, for example, if Burger King ignored health and safety laws to keep their prices lower, in that circumstance one could argue that McDonalds would be harmed by the unfair and illegal competition.
But in this instance there is no illegality or unfairness in the used game market. It's not illegal for consumers to resell their games. It's not unfair to price those used games lower because the products are necessarily inferior to the new ones.
If your industry is somehow being harmed by perfectly legal and fair competition, then it's about time change careers because you have a complete misunderstanding about how capitalism is supposed to work. You are not entitled to someone else's profits, merely because you want them. Get over it.
Unfortunately, this is exactly why the new game industry is having laws passed to make it more difficult to sell used games. Despite what corporations say, they don't really want to compete in a free market, they want the government to bend over and protect them from legal competition.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
A company can do whatever the hell it wants! Nobody forces you to buy these games after all. Between bong hits, you hippies whine that policies like this lead to decreased consumer choice, greater entrenchment of established players, less innovation, and price increases across the board. So what? That's just too bad. The right of a corporation to do anything it wants it spelled out in the Book of Job. If a corporation does it, that makes it right.
Still whining, huh? Are you a successful executive? No? When what business do you have talking about anything, loser? Don't like it? Go read a book, or move to a France, or preferably, impress your boss by putting in 12 hours at work tomorrow instead of the expected 10.
It doesnt bypass anything. The first sale doctrine still applies, and Sony has to allow the transfer of DLC to other accounts. Of course someone has to sue them first to force them to respect the law, until that happens they can flaunt the law all they want.
Piracy is the better choice. It's been said before, but apparently it hasn't gotten old yet.
I work for a one of the big european car manufactorer's. I can assure you that car manufactorer's have absolutely no interest in crippliing used cars sales.
If people could not sell their cars(to the dealer or to another user directly) they would keep using the same old car until it can. Car manufactorer's are instead very interested in people changing thir car every few years(2-3-5 are the most interesting spans), so they can seel a new one. People buyng a used medium size sedan are not likely to buy the same car new, while people changing their medium size sedan every 2-3 years are not likely to resort to used cars market(they clearly like having brand new cars), so there is very little overlap.
Also a used car is a very very different product from a new one. They have different values and there are many risks for non competent people buying 5 or more years old cars.
A car, even if there is no newer version, gets old with use and get less and less "useful" with time. There are very little istances of cars which are more than 10 years old and still good for everyday use, at least not without major maintenance(old fasghioned cars are a good example, if well kept they can be in perfect working order, but the cost of mantaining a 50's car in mint condition are very high. What you spend on it in 5 years is for syure much more than what you'd spend to buy a maintain a brand new car for the same time, and you'd have to factor that newer cars have better mileage, and much bettere safety systems, not to mention comfort).
Used games are the same, as long as the instalation media is not ruined they don't loose value due to use or abuse. The only limiting factor in a game value is aging, which is devalueing because newer better games come out. So These people just want to spend less money making new games, and keep milking old cows.
Car makers used not to have this problem up to a few years ago. they did start in the nineties to make new models every 2-3 years because they wanted to push obsolescence on their previous models just to sell more(they mostly succeeded here in europe).
I don't buy a Sony TV because of my past experiences with Sony's car radios etc. The whole DRM thing is useful to tell the good ones from the bad ones.
Having such cool products.... I wonder if they fully appreciate what they're doing to their brand.
I don't buy Sony products because:
I think any of those alone are enough reason to boycott any company. Put more than one into a single company and there's no excuse to buy anything from them.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I readily admit that on paper Blu-Ray was better technically regarding higher density disks. The slightly higher transfer rates are irrelevant regarding movies, since there's no bandwidth issues there unless your source is using an inefficient compression algorithm.
Both BR and HDDVD support TrueHD audio, so I'm not sure where your misinformation on audio comes from. You should also note that almost all movies are in 5.1 audio, not the 7.1 that's supported.
But, BR the implementation was hamstrung from the beginning by DRM requirements, and the implementation at the time of the "win" was far below what HD DVD already was capable of. (we really should just say "bought in as gross an example of monopolistic anti-competitive behavior as is available in history" as Sony mortgaged half the company to do so)
Add to that the fact that the hard coating was a requirement on BR disks, and could have easily been added to HD DVD disks, the only thing left is capacity. Now as to capacity, most BR disks use the less than optimal MPEG2 encoding which is a space hog, yet still leaves lots of room on most BR disks, essentially stating they could also easily fit on HD DVD disks. MPEG4 encoding, which is much more efficient and actually preserves more quality even when a movie is compressed to a smaller file size than MPEG2 equivalent would completely negate the size argument at least as far as movies go - the primary reason for these disks existence in the first place.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.