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Microsoft Integrating Xbox One Advertising With Kinect To Profile Users For Ads
MojoKid writes "When Microsoft reversed its Xbox One DRM policies a few weeks back, there was momentary hope that the company has listened to its customers and understood the features they were asking for. Granted, this was brief. However, with Mattrick gone, there was some hope that maybe the company would reintroduce plans like Family Sharing and put the console back on track. Apparently not. Microsoft's big new feature with Kinect? Advertising. Microsoft plans to use Kinect to make advertisements even more engaging than their current counterparts. In the future, Kinect may offer you a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' style narrative in which you speak commands or give orders to an ad as it's playing to change the final outcome. The other way Microsoft wants to use Kinect is to monitor what's going on in the living room to serve you group-appropriate content, rather than resorting to the plain old method of bombarding you with non-interactive advertising for things you don't care about. Microsoft will likely learn that telling gamers that the Xbox One is an ad-centric experience and attempting to spin it like a positive doesn't actually work."
Slimfast and match.com is gonna be appearing on most I bet.
And before anyone claims Sony doesn't do this already, you've already got little promotional boxes and ads after you've booted up and automatically logged into your PSN on your PS3.
Will not buy.
Wow, I actually want the new xbox less than I want a Wii U now...
Why are there even ads on the Xbox? After all you've:
A) Bought the console
B) Bought some games (presumably)
C) Quite possibly bought a gold membership
Now, I can understand something like when you go to the store to have maybe a little promo of "what's new" but beyond that, ads are unacceptable.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
When I want a game console, what I actually want are advertisements! And the Xbox One offers interactive advertisements, no less! Sure, you could just play games to get your fill of interactive content, but why play games when you could watch ads? Who plays games, anyway? Certainly not people who buy the Xbox One; they'll be too busy with ads.
GO FUCK YOURSELVES MICROSOFT.
I'd be okay with this on the condition that the kinect interprets the middle finger as a "skip ad" gesture
I'll say it again:
The primary purpose of the XBox One is to be a platform for selling ads. On the one hand, publishers no longer need to solicit for static advertising in games, now they can have Microsoft be the entire advertising platform. It's like embedding a Google ad on your blog and collecting the revenue, only now on a HUGE scale. On the other hand, no longer do advertisers need to pay a ton for static ads on pre-releae titles, hoping that the ad retains enough relevance to be beneficial to their business. Publishers win, Microsoft wins, and advertisers win. Welcome to the future!
Kinect is all about generating advertising hints. It just is. There's no other sane reason why it supposedly cannot be turned off. It's there to collect hints on your environment, feed them to the Bing ad platform, and generate in-game ads as a result.
The always-on, regularly dial-home connectivity scheme was all about exchanging advertising hints for ads. Microsoft can capture advertisers by guaranteeing nearly real-time freshness of their advertising.
And lastly, the "co-process in the cloud" is all about advertising. Polygons aren't going to be rendered in the cloud, ad textures are. Turn that off and I bet there will be a lot of empty textures in just about every XB1 game that comes out, from AAA titles to $5 throw-aways.
Microsoft is selling you to the advertisers. It's just as simple as that.
and TODAY nobody is bad-mouthing Steam after over a decade of DRM-encumbered operation.
I am. Plenty of other people still do. So, you're wrong.
Only old people use Bing. And only then because likely they confused it with Bingo.
You're free to sell your games for however much you want them. Hint: There's more than just Gamestop.
Steam is actually pretty crappy, but its better than some DRM schemes that publishers have come up with since you can't just swap disks like you've always been able to with console games.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
So will I have to run in place for ten seconds to skip a weight loss ad and play my game?
It's all about the camera. The one in your living-room. Considering who Microsoft is working with these days, do you really want a camera in your living-room?
People were not complaining about selling games with the DRM an, they were complaining about not being able to play them.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Meet Mark Penn http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/technology/microsoft-battles-google-by-hiring-political-brawler-mark-penn.html?_r=1& This *cough* shitslinger of joys like scroogled is also in charge of include a blind taste test, Coke-versus-Pepsi style, of search results from Google and Microsoft’s Bing.
Mr. Penn was put in charge of innocently titled “strategic and special projects” its nice that his work bulldozing enemies of the Clintons is now but to work slinging shit at Google.
Ironically this is another article about Bing being shoved down peoples throats in another Duopoly rather than competing on old fashioned things like competition. Perhaps Microsoft Time and Money would be spent serving its hostages.
In Soviet Russia Bing searches you!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yeah, that really isn't going to work. I mean, the only things that will be said to the screen will be a variety of invitations to sexual acts or to vacate.
Me: Hey Bob, did you hear about Kim Gong Eel's new rocket? It has a long tube with two balls attached for the explosives...
Bob: Wow really!? That sounds pretty neat, how does it.... whoah wait, why is your tv playing porn videos now?
Me: Oh don't worry about that, it's the new xbox connect one serving us ads... silly thing!
-- stoops
Why are there even ads on the Xbox? After all you've:
A) Bought the console
B) Bought some games (presumably)
C) Quite possibly bought a gold membership
Now, I can understand something like when you go to the store to have maybe a little promo of "what's new" but beyond that, ads are unacceptable.
Except you don't buy anything anymore you don't own your xbox...games...service you license them. Suck it up or by an alternative product of which there is many. I have bought an OuYa.
After Internet Explorer 4's "Desktop enhancements" gave you an ad-filled channelbar way back in 1997 as well as shipping Windows 98 with it, it's hard to believe it it's false.
> How often are people screwed by selling their used games for pennies on the dollar?
Umm its a used item, its not gold or an investment. I want to buy a used game as cheap as I can get it, that's all that matters. I think you're confused on the used marker thingy, its about buying second hand items "cheap" not selling them for 90% of the retail sticker price.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
This model seems to work on Steam and TODAY nobody is bad-mouthing Steam after over a decade of DRM-encumbered operation.
I am against DRM on steam(and am far from being alone)...and many include myself bad mouth it. I would rather all my games were DRM free. I buy from steam because they are *cheap*...in my mind disposable, because I am prepared to pay less money from a game I license instead of own(yes I am playing hard and fast with English what of it).
The difference is DRM on the xbox is that games are $60...and come on physical media.
The bottom line is this has nothing to do with the article in question, which is about spying on customers and shovelling targeted ads down their throats, on a device costing more than the opposition who don't.
This is perhaps the most negative publicity that I've seen for a console before it even came out. Even the failures like the 3DO had great publicity (the 3DO was named Time's 'product of the year')
Has there been -anything- positive that has come out of the Xbox One's pre-launch that hasn't just been damage control?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I am not an avid gamer, but I do occasionally play games. I will never drop $60 on a new game, and I won't go to Gamestop to spend $50 on a used one. What I will do, however is occasionally troll garage sales, and Amazon for interesting looking games. I bought the Force Unleashed I and II for $8 total a few weeks ago. If Microsoft's new system were in place, I never could have done that.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Unless MS was planning on having 10€ sales with DRM that is easy to crack and would be playable 10 years in the future, it's very different.
Here's the new screen layout:
http://codinghorror.typepad.com/.a/6a0120a85dcdae970b0120a86dd2e5970b-pi
To some degree we are getting there (it's worse on the XBox 360):
http://cdn-static.zdnet.com/i/r/story/70/00/002993/original/w8rtm-windows-8-start-620x.jpg?hash=MwZ2ZmL2AQ
And Mike Judge is a god in my mind: Idiocracy, Office Space (I wore a suit for a few years early on) and Beavis and Butthead.
Anyway, I have to get back to Aww my Balls. Stop interrupting me. You broke my apartment.
BlameBillCosby.com
Looking at a still photo of the XBox One screen just made me realize... it finally dawned on me where Microsoft got the idea for the start screen tiles on XBox and Windows 8.
It's the Wii. All they've done is let you have some of the boxes be bigger than the others - but it's basically the Wii's interface that Nintendo released in 2006.
Even the ads. The Wii used the boxes for the Shop to advertise stuff you could buy.
#DeleteChrome
...it provides consumer protection... by elevating prices...
Reality is so much freakier than drugs...
Man, what is in this shit, man?
Mostly Maui Waui man, but it's got some Labrador in it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
From the Wikipedia article regarding Steam (my emphasis):
"Steam collects and reports anonymous metrics of its usage, stability, and performance.[53] With the exception of Valve's hardware survey,[54] most collection occurs without notifying the user or offering an opt-out. Some of these metrics are available publicly, such as what games are being played or statistics on player progress in certain games.[55] Valve has also used information from these statistics to justify implementing new features in Steam, such as the addition of a defragmentation option for game caches.[56] Valve announced on July 15, 2010 that in conjunction with collecting hardware information in Steam's opt-in hardware surveys, they would begin collecting a list of the user's installed software as well.[57]"
I don't bad-mouth Steam/Valve--I simply don't do business with them. Never have, never will. I suspect I am not alone in that regard.
People were not complaining about selling games with the DRM an, they were complaining about not being able to play them.
That's exactly what DRM is designed to do. By putting up with it, you are subsidising your own restrictions.
Anything else amounts to expecting the gaming corporations to act against their own profit motives. If they can tempt you into accepting unreasonable restrictions with the latest shiny, they will. If they can either kill off or control the used games markets, they will. These things make them more money. It's just that simple.
Anyone who purchases DRM'ed titles and complains about this needs to take a long look into the mirror. Expecting goodwill from these corporations is madness. They view you in much the same way that coal companies view the mines. You're a resource to be tapped. What's right and wrong to these sociopaths is whatever you'll bend over and take. I mean, this should be easy: we are talking about gaming systems here, not food and water. The slightest discipline means you prevail and *they* bend over and take it because their alternative is going out of business.
The situation is downright pitiful. I think the executives see it this way as well, which is why they feel completely justified in their exploitation. They feel completely justified taking advantage because it's what so many people want (or don't care about) and are willing to pay for.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Farnsworth: "Shut up friends! My internet browser heard us saying the word Fry and it found a movie about Philip J. Fry for us. It also opened my calendar to Friday and ordered me some french fries."
Do you know anywhere in the US where you can rent as well as sell/buy used PC games? Neither do I. I guess Steams lack of those features is rather a moot point, and there are tons of people whining about Steam.
:(
If you're curious, my state passed a law over a decade ago that totally killed PC software rentals and used sales.
By the way, the new 'features' of xbox v3 has me totally committed to buying something else, probably a ps4.
For $500+$60/yr +$65/game + $??? for all the peripherals over the years I DO NOT WANT MOTHER FUCKING ADVERTISING... PERIOD.
Microsoft's Skype, has a backdoor for the NSA to do stuff like live surveillance. This came out in the PRISM/CHESS documents.
So your XBox with its dual Kinect cameras sitting on the TV, and its always-on connections to the Internet could well also have an NSA back door to it, like Skype does.
Also from the Blackhat presentation, Skype is obfuscated code and may contain back doors beyond surveillance of calls, e.g. maybe they can turn mic/camera on remotely:
https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-europe-06/bh-eu-06-biondi/bh-eu-06-biondi-up.pdf
It's all very 1984 telescreen
Ironically, I know of some people who would buy the Kinect if that was a feature.
This model seems to work on Steam and TODAY nobody is bad-mouthing Steam after over a decade of DRM-encumbered operation.
Nobody in US where consumer protection means protecting corporations from users. Germany is suing Valve over steam no resale policy, they did it after landmark case versus Oracle that reinforced right to resale software..
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
I don't know how you can compare the two. One sells pretty new games unbelievably cheap, requires a connection once a month, and will play games on any system you have as long as the game supports it (even if it is your tenth machine and it is fifteen years later).
Also, the idea that it somehow helps the used market is ridiculous. It helps the new market. It helps Microsoft control the entire ball of wax. For example, remember when things moved to digital and all the publishers and developers reduced the price from $60 to $30?... oh, right -- they didn't.
They play adverts, they monitor the kinect camera, and they can see which ads have an effect and are watched. XBox is an ads mans wet dream. Never mind that its a customers nightmare.
Also the possibilities for profit are endless:
Suppose you are in the UK and have an XBox with Kinect. NSA can legally spy on Brits, so it buys spy time on XBox Kinects to watch a target. Turns on the camera, gets its surveillance data and hey presto, leverage. Maybe a politicians family is in, the son is smoking pot, that's paydirt and you as customer brought the surveillance camera into your own home and wired it up yourself and even pay for the connection to the NSA!
Would Microsoft sell them access? Well it provided live Skype taps, message+voice+video taps on Skype. And Skype must have some business model we can't see to justify its $7 billion price. So yeh, damn right!
Yup. MS said so themselves.
Xbox One built for ads from the ground up
Need I say more?
It certainly looks that way.
The article contains a quote offering a nice reminder of who Microsoft is really working for:
The goal, [Microsoft general manager David] Pann says, is to give advertisers access to consumers across a broader variety of their daily activities, not just when they’re overtly conducting a search.
I suppose that broader variety also includes gaming or watching movies.
I usually use a site as a landing page and reflexively go to my intended site (email, calendar, etc) from there, or I'm on some other site with links out. Sometimes, as soon as I click a link to where I want to go, I notice an ad on the originating page for something I actually might be interested in. But when I go back to that page, I rarely can get a repeat performance of the original ad; surprisingly I seem to get a cycle of the about a half dozen others, but rarely including the first. There should be some way to force an affinity between ads and the back button. After all, I'm not likely to bounce on the refresh button just to see what different ads come up, but it is possible that I might use the back button to get back to something I was interested in.
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
Why does my Xbone keep serving me ads for lotion and tissues? Surely it can see I already have plenty at hand.
Based on comments from Microsoft, supposedly the Kinect can see where the blood is going in your body, if your hands were hot etc. (i.e. see in infrared wavelengths in addition to visual) via "active infrared". This would also mean it would be able to look through (to an extent) light clothing. How the bozo's at the top of Microsoft thought this was a good idea is hard to fathom - as this will blow up in their faces (another thing, yet again).
Microsoft is not Valve. Lets not pretend they are even close to the same league of companies.
Good-bye
it was decided that an always-online mandatory webcam was the new way forward.
Better compared to what? Because last I checked, the default of no DRM is superior to any other sort of scheme.
One, if people are selling a luxury item at pennies on the dollar, it's a good bet that they're getting sufficient value at even pennies on the dollar to make it worthwhile. Two, odds are good your complaint is directed more at the ratio of sold used game prices vs new game prices, which has a lot to do with the fact that Nintendo, MS, and Sony games are so damn expensive even on the cheap side--excluding the digital download games (wow, just like Steam with all the non-resellable aspects*). Three, the rest of your complaint is directed at middlemen like Gamestop, Amazon, etc who buy low and sell high while using aspects of being the market maker to get a larger cut of the buy/sell price (just like HFT), but that speaks more to the point that if MS gave a damn they'd set up exchanges to facilitate sales without taking those huge cuts.
Um.."consumer protection ... by elevating prices"? Maybe in the reduces-the-degree-of-depreciation sense. But video games aren't cars and it's quite crazy to presume there won't be substantial depreciation in a used game. Besides, as mentioned above, to actually work on "consumer protection" MS would setup used game exchanges to facilitate safer used game sales or similar things. And as for providing "nominal revenue for publishers"...uh...why should the publishers (or developers) be getting any money? Because MS said so?
Um, plenty of people bad-mouth Steam. I bad-mouth Steam. Steam Client for Linux is a crash-prone mess, at least for me. Even if it weren't crash-prone, having to start up a separate program to play a game is ridiculous. Having it constantly running to avoid that is ridiculous. Having it be a nanny and check to be really super-sure the 100th time that, yea, I really did buy the game and it's okay for me to play it, is ridiculous. The fact that so many games are Windows focused and trying to fiddle with them to get them to work under a [beta] Linux executable (if even available), wine (using Windows Steam Client, of course), or Virtualbox (with questionable 3D support) is hampered by the Steam mindset that the above are three different machines and hence require three separate 9GB d/ls just to see which works best is ridiculous--and even if I can do a backup/restore from one "machine" to the other, that's only marginally less ridiculous.
But, yea, keep singing to your choir.
*Note, I don't say this is as a great champion of the non-resellability of Steam. But then it's funny how you think it's better for consumers if prices raise [on used games] ignoring the space without used games has lower prices. In any case, the obvious risk to any of the above schemes are issues of monopolistic prices due to control by a distributor. Of course, the beauty to that is precisely the multi-porting of games and the competition of the various platforms, though that leaves the user with the serious disadvantage of having to buy several platforms to buy different games on different platforms to get the best price. And, of course, one of those platforms is the used game part on the PC outside of Steam, so odds are good at least that MS will at worst hurt itself and boost PC sales of games. :/
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Either you allow second market sales, or you provide sales on the level of Steam (>=75% off). Steam caught on because of price, convenience is a secondary concern. Microsoft wanted to double dip with restrictions on second hand and no major sales (at least, they've never mentioned any of it, and you can bet they would've if they'd planned it to shield themselves from the backlash).
The Xbox One recognizes your face. It knows if you're watching. They're in a position to insist that you watch the ads. Leave during an ad, and everything pauses until you get back to finish watching the ad.
"It sees you when you're sleeping. It knows when you're awake. It knows if you've been bad or good."
I am not sure why they can not do both, the issue I had with the DRM was that is was not possible to play a game if your internet was down for more than 24 hours, and I use my console on vacation allot where there is no internet. So why did they not let you choose if you want to use DRM you have to have the internet up every 24 hours, if your internet is down, stick the disk in the system to play the game just like you always have and it works while the disk is in.
I must be missing something.
Anything else amounts to expecting the gaming corporations to act against their own profit motives. If they can tempt you into accepting unreasonable restrictions with the latest shiny, they will. If they can either kill off or control the used games markets, they will. These things make them more money. It's just that simple.
Anyone who purchases DRM'ed titles and complains about this needs to take a long look into the mirror.
There are two separate issues, you are not pointing at the same thing I am.
Assume I purchase a game and the media has DRM, like a CD-Key. When I upgrade my device, especially to the same manufacture/design/model in an upgraded version there is an expectation that I can play that game on the new device. It's no different than upgrading my PC and expecting my old stuff works.
In that respect, and with that type of DRM most people have no issues with DRM. It should also be understood that upgrades should only be expected to go so far in time (backward compatibility after a 2nd upgrade would not really be a fair expectation). We can rip CD/DVD copies to maintain the original, and maintain the key for use.
What Microsoft announced in their DRM initially was that old media would not be playable because it did not fit in their DRM model (in addition to numerous other reasons). Public reaction to Sony discussing it and abandoning the idea with PS3 should have given MS a hint, but it didn't for a very long time. I'm still curious to see if they allow old media to play with the new designs. I honestly have not followed very closely, don't own an Xbox, and try to boycott Microsoft at every possible position.
The person I replied too made it seem like the issues were just because people wanted to pirate shit. That position is wrong, and while I perhaps didn't do the best at explaining "why" it's wrong that was the intent of my post.
Now to your point, it seems like you wish for no DRM at all, including keys to unlock media. Personally I have much less issue with that than I do with Movies forcing me to watch previews every time I put in a movie. Old style DRM was extremely minimal with intrusion, and offered some protection to creators. Whether it was Unix hostid's or CD keys it worked for the most part (and still does with the most expensive software like CAD and Analysis).
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Let's get this straight, for those of you still too thick to understand what Microsoft is doing.
- the console refuses to function UNLESS the Kinect sensor system is fully operational
- attempts to cover the Kinect camera lenses or point Kinect at a wall cause the console to immediately pester the user to 'recalibrate' Kinect
- Microsoft insists that every app and game uses Kinect input to a certain degree, even if this means an optional input mechanism for menu screens. There are ZERO games and apps that will completely ignore Kinect functionality.
- Kinect sensors are operating ALL the time (no user disable, which is why you can NEVER use the console if Kinect is unplugged).
- The console dedicates 2 CPU cores (from 8), a significant chunk of dedicated hardware processing functionality on the GPU/DSP side, a significant amount of the RAM, and a large portion of the HDD for the exclusive use of the Kinect system. Not even a AAA game can access this set-aside hardware for its own use- Kinect is always able to run at full potential no matter what game is running.
- Kinect constantly monitors each person that enters (or leaves) the room, and stores a full face photo of each person. This data is uploaded to servers whenever the console connects to the Internet. Remote servers can use the full face photo, combined with the known address of the console, to make a hugely accurate informed 'guess' as to the identity of the person.
- The Xbox One can be remotely made to stream video and sound from Kinect (of programmable quality/bandwidth) by any authorised remote server. For instance, every online Xbox One appears on an NSA list, and NSA personnel can tell any of these consoles to begin (within tens of milliseconds) streaming Kinect data to their servers. Or put even simpler, every online Xbox One is a window into that home for the NSA.
- Xbox One consoles can be instructed to capture streamed data from the Kinect on the internal HDD for later uploading when Internet connection is restored.
- Lists of trigger conditions can be downloaded to any console- triggers that will automatically activate Kinect data gathering and streaming. Triggers might include a gunshot, certain people entering the room, people having sex in the room, a man speaking Arabic, sounds of a domestic disturbance, someone using the 'N'-word (look how that simple detail brought down a powerful woman recently- remember the usefulness of gathering potential 'blackmail' info).
So much attention was given to helping the NSA, that Microsoft forgot to bother making the console worth buying in the first place. It has 1/2 (as in 50%) of the GPU performance of Sony's PS4, yet costs more. Its GPU design needs special programming, unlike the clean GPU sub-system of the PS4 (this despite the fact that both consoles use the same AMD base graphics processing units).
Microsoft is pushing this ad crap to try to explain to VERY dumb sheep why the Kinect system is always-on. The really dumb sheep are supposed to be still unaware of the unbelievable extent of the NSA abuses. Even now, in gaming forums aimed at Xbox users, the consensus successful pushed by Microsoft reputation managers is that the NSA spying allegations have been disproved, but obviously when the rotten console finally goes on sale, and tests prove the Kinect is always running, some cover story will be needed to justify this.
Oh come on
Think of the PORN millions of xboxes could produce... for free!
We'll have a whole new category for porn now and you too can access is for $10 a month on xboxkinection.com
For a reasonable fee of $50 per year AND $5 per message Micro-One-Dating will also put you in touch with single attractive dating prospects!
Ignore the SQUICK we cut to the QUICK! Why stalk the girl of your dreams and get arrested peeping through her window when we can provide you with high resolution full colour video - and NOW we feature On Demand for just a little extra $$!
Join the ratemyxboxoneperformance.com site as we now are accepting public submissions in addition to those provided by the professional critics at MicroSoft headquarters!
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
A lot of people give their lame games away. When you pay $60 for a lame game that is what a good friend does: give it to a friend who is in danger of making the same mistake to try. So the paid for copies circulate until they find somebody who likes it. The more lame a game is, the faster it circulates and the more people discover they should not waste their money on this lame game. That is the evolution that preventing game trading is about. The game maker thinks that is lost revenue. More people would buy lame games if they didn't know the game was lame. That is money they could have got for their lame game that nobody wants who has tried it. For some reason makers of lame games think this is stealing money they should have got and want technology to prevent it. Makers of lame movies and songs have the same point of view. They really don't understand why buyers of games, movies and songs don't want to help them with this goal.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
No, really, I'm not kidding, there is no possible additional feature or "exclusive" game or service that could make me EVER buy something like this.
Do not want with a fierce burning passion.
I'm fine with this as long as there are enough alternate scenes so that at any point in time I can say, "Kill yourself." and all on-screen characters will suddenly find creative ways to do so.
This would be endlessly entertaining.
I would be telling my friends which commercial to watch and when to say something.
Maybe that's the future of commercials: viral Easter Egg hunts.
(No, I don't actually think this is a ad integration is a good thing.)
Slimfast and match.com is gonna be appearing on most I bet.
Don't forget about the possibility of ads from local chiropractors!
It can play the moment you put your back out.
"Hi, this is Kinect Bob. I see you are screaming in agony and prone on the floor, would you like me to contact Dr. Friendly for you? Twitch to the left for YES".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do we really need Soviet Russia anymore? I was under the impression we already surpassed them by leaps and bounds when it comes to domestic spying and keeping the population under control.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Apparently it needs to be connected for hte xbox to work. But can't you just put a sock over it? Congrats MS.. you get a first hand look at what the inside of my sock looks like... 24/7.
The Orwellian parallel is the TVs in 1984 which couldn't be turned off and could spy on you. People in the book used to put curtains over the TVs when they weren't using them. But they couldn't turn them off. They'd just sit there all day and all night... and you had to put a curtain over them if you wanted any sleep. Do the same with this stupid connect device. Put a sock over it.
Or do the really bright thing and don't buy it. MS is not providing what the consumer wants. This is not an honest product.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I have no problem with Steam. They actually seem to realize that digital delivery means the customer can save money. When I'm buying fairly recent games for 60% off or whatever, I don't really care if I can't resell them. Steam makes purchasing and playing games pretty cheap and easy, so I like it.
Origin, is another story. Steam works precisely because it's publisher-agnostic. Origin will never gain that momentum because EA is just using it as a way to increase profits by cutting out the costs of physical distribution, without passing any savings to the customer.
Well, at least last time I checked there wasn't a "Steam Only" game, aside of maybe some of Valve's own. And even there I'm fairly certain you can get a boxed version somehow that you needn't tie to some Steam account. And if everything fails and you want to resell your games, there's always the option to create an account for that game you plan to resell only.
I doubt I have that much of a choice with XB1 games.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Wrongo, moosebreath. The NSA mandate is omniscience. That includes the fat and dickless as much as the hot moms doing Tantric Yoga. It all must be recorded. Admin contractors though, they have a preference. That is why Bing integration gives live video stream context search. "Bing, find blonde women doing yoga."
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Why not? I can very well agree with it.
DRM devalues a product. It does take away some rights I usually enjoy when I buy something, like being able to resell it, being able to use it whenever and however I want to and so on. One can agree with this or one cannot, but the very least I would expect when I am supposed to put up with additional hardships and less usability is a reduction in price. And that's exactly what he is talking about.
When you reduce the value of a product and at the same time reduce its price, there isn't really much to complain about. At least as long as the other option remains available. If anything, it's free market at its finest. You have premium quality at premium price, and you have the el-cheapo, Chinese knockoff in the penny market, pick and choose, customer!
I also don't think anyone would have a problem with heavy ads if it was an option. Either pay premium for ad-free content or accept ads and pay a discount. If anything, people would rejoice and love the increased choice they get, not unlike you get with some other software today (notably in the security department, which is a bit ... odd to say the least, but I ramble).
What I do have a problem with is mixing them. Loading a product with crippling DRM, selling it at a premium price and not offering me the option to choose something different. Making me pay premium AND bombarding me with ads. THAT is the problem we're talking about here because that is what is happening with games today. Prices stay at 60 bucks or even rise past it while at the same time the product gets artificially devalued by invasive DRM, and now we're probably getting the ridiculous "watch a truckload of ads before you can use the product" we already loved so much with movies on DVD.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why not? I can very well agree with it.
Well, I can't. I'm fundamentally opposed to DRM, so even if someone were to offer me a DRM-infested game at a cheap price, I would not buy it.
It's not advertising, it's a new form of achievements.
* Watched 100 ads in 3 hours
* Clicked on 50 ads
* Said "Xbox ONE, search for pizza"
Bing image search doesn't enforce safe-search if you decide to turn it off (Google doesn't allow you to globally do this anymore) and has a pretty decent interface. The rest is not helpful, but image search is.
Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more!
I think patenting giving this "the finger" would make you insanely rich instead.
I could somehow see people even paying a licensing fee just to do it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Fine, in Capitalist America, Bing searches you!
Better?
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Knowing how the kinect works with digit interpretation now, it would probably just be mistaken for the "buy one" gesture.
What?!? It's not a bug, it's a feature!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
I know, that makes it so funny to make them have to do it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The NSA can now watch what your doing in the living room.
I pity the agent who has to watch this.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Well, technically they ARE selling you an ad-delivery mechanism. The console shell is just there to make you want it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Indirectly. The way MS has you at the balls with this makes sure that they will eventually just shrivel up.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Fine, in Fascist America, Bing searches you!
FTFY
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
They had this in 1984. It was called a telescreen. Like the Kinect One, the telescreen can't be turned off.
How do you go about trolling garage sales?
Maybe you turn up and start shouting "All this stuff is junk!"
You only forget to mention who "consumers" are. They are companies that sell ads and game publishers.
As for the people who are typically referred to as "customers" by the rest of us, your type of shill usually refers to them as "product".
P.S. There are plenty of us who badmouth steam over DRM.
So I pay for the box (and the kinect camera), I pay for the game, and I even pay to get online, and yet they still shove ads to my face?
Then it will suck on the teats of the mommy. According to doctors that is healthier. So clearly, we're doing a public service by buying used games!
That's perfectly fine and acceptable. But I hope we can agree that people should have the choice between paying more and having more rights to the content, or paying less and being subject to various limitations.
Much like the choice between paying for a movie and watching it ad-free or accepting ads and watching it for free.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'd be OK with it if Microsoft was giving them away. Charging advertisers to put ads in front of users and then making users pay for the Xbox so that they can be pummelled with ads seems, somehow, really fucking greedy.
I didn't say that they shouldn't be able to do so; I just think paying for something with DRM--any DRM--is harmful.
This is what it boils down to. To most people a game isn't worth the full asking price. Doesn't matter what it cost to produce, how badly EA employees are starving, it just isn't worth the money to most consumers. They only buy the game knowing that they can get half the money back by selling it second hand.
If you break second hand sales you need to discount the game by 60% at least, otherwise most consumers are not going to buy it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Is that ironic?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The Russian search engine Yandex is one of the sources for duckduckgo. We need them because they help to maintain our privacy.
I think this is it. Look at steam top sellers, yes you will get some big titles in there. But you also get a lot of hey, this wierd inda game went on sale for 3 bucks. Everyone buys it, plays for a day and moves on. There are some interesting groups on there.
Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events. - Albert Einstein
In Soviet Russia, you watch television.
I am not an avid gamer, but I do occasionally play games. I will never drop $60 on a new game, and I won't go to Gamestop to spend $50 on a used one. What I will do, however is occasionally troll garage sales, and Amazon for interesting looking games. I bought the Force Unleashed I and II for $8 total a few weeks ago. If Microsoft's new system were in place, I never could have done that.
While I am in no way affiliated with the site, I am a big fan of Slick Deals. There is another site called Fat Wallet, which I do not use (don't like the layout when I've tried it), that also specializes in deals. I spend, on average, $10 for a 360 game. I have so little time for gaming that a game is only worth about that much to me.
Exactly... OP does not know his history.
Steam existed since 2004 and had little to no discounts, other then what we had seen previously. Then in 2008 Direct2Drive was started to get some traction and their sales being reported on; suddenly in Dec of that same year Steam has it's first Steam Sale.
After a few years of this Amazon soon started having their sales too; and now it's SOP for all the shops.
Imagine you are an executive at a company that makes a gadget that users interact with. The user pays for the gadget along with the interactive services that the gadget provides.
Lets also suppose that the gadget is very popular and has a large user base. Being a profit-seeking individual, you as an executive come up with the genius idea of integrating ads into the gadget.
You demonstrate that by introducing ads you can immediately impact the bottom line in a positive manner (at least in the short term). Since most businesses are short-term oriented, everyone is excited. Your genius idea is implemented and you get a bonus that is commensurate with the money your idea brings in.
All the executives line their pocket and live happily ever after. As far as the consumers who were buying your gadget, if they eventually stop buying/using your gadget, so what. You got yours (golden parachute opens).....The end.
How often are people screwed by selling their used games for pennies on the dollar?
Never.
First, you have no inherent right to recoup your costs. So, if you fail to do that, you're not getting screwed. Second, some used games sell for more than pennies on the dollar.
The XBOX One scheme actually does two things: it provides consumer protection in the used game market by elevating prices
What? That's not how it works, because no right of consumers is being protected here.
and it appears to also provide minimal (and nominal) revenue for publishers when a game is resold.
IOW, it is just another example of rent-seeking, which does not advance humanity in any way. Indeed, it retards progress by adding incentives to not progress, since you can continue to profit from old work done. But First Sale law is quite clear on this issue when it comes to physical goods, and there's no good reason why the sale of a virtual good should be treated differently.
This model seems to work on Steam and TODAY nobody is bad-mouthing Steam after over a decade of DRM-encumbered operation.
Bull. Fucking. Shit. I badmouth Steam over their DRM every time Steam comes up, and I'm certainly not alone. You, sir, are most likely a liar, and are ignorant at best.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It is also at best a distortion of the truth, but realistically, what we call a lie. If you beat a game quickly and care for the materials and it doesn't depend on a download-once DLC to be fun, and you handle the sale yourself, then you can usually sell the game for a large percentage of the purchase price. It's only if you hold onto the game for a long time (not long enough to become a serious collectible, mind you) that it depreciates strongly. You can also use a service (like gamestop) which will take far too large a cut, but nobody is forcing you to do that. But if Microsoft had their way, they would force you to give a percentage to them on every transaction, which should really be illegal, and which would be illegal in the USA if there were any sense to our laws. They want to call it "intellectual property" but they don't want it governed by the same laws as real property.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Do you know anywhere in the US where you can rent as well as sell/buy used PC games?
Rent? No. Sell/Buy? Yes. It is called eBay. I imagine you may have heard of it. I just got two Xbox 360 games from it, because they finally got cheap (AC brotherhood being one of them...) I got both games below Gamestop's prices, the one I have received so far has a pristine disc.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well, at least last time I checked there wasn't a "Steam Only" game, aside of maybe some of Valve's own. And even there I'm fairly certain you can get a boxed version somehow that you needn't tie to some Steam account.
(-1, Ignorant) You're fairly certain of something which is false. Valve games since Steam all require Steam, period, end of story.
And if everything fails and you want to resell your games, there's always the option to create an account for that game you plan to resell only.
Violation of T&C, grounds for termination and required to enter arbitration. I'm not paying Steam for the privilege of becoming all but a criminal (maybe being a criminal, if it's found you somehow violated copyright law by doing this) by working around the roadblock they placed in front of First Sale. And since I don't have a multi-megabit internet connection, I can't actually use Steam anyway. Once a game is installed, it updates more or less okay, but getting it installed can be nigh-impossible. I downloaded about 14GB before I gave up on TF2 (which is supposed to be what, 6GB?) and uninstalled Steam from Linux. Steam is garbage.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hell I still haven't figured out how they were able to pull off the scam that is XBL, so give MSFT credit as they managed to make piles of money convincing people they should have to pay a monthly fee just to play the games they already paid for online while everybody else has always had online MP free.
And sadly while I think its a nasty DRM box I have a feeling the Xbone is gonna be a runaway smash simply because MSFT opened up one of their money trucks and emptied it on the front lawn of the NFL and there are a LOT of guys in the USA that would buy a system that had a Goatse from Ballmer himself on the cover if it had NFL exclusives. hell I know a guy that has his CC on file with gamestop just so that EVERY NFL or NASCAR release for his console and handheld is delivered to his door on the day of release, so no matter how nasty MSFT gets he'll buy the Xbone on launch. Sadly he is far from alone, i have noticed a LOT of overlap between the X360 demographic and the frat boy "hey brah" crowd so while it may not beat the PS4 it should make MSFT a killing.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I've already PAID you handsomely for the console, I've PAID for the games, now you want to shove ads on my face? FUCK YOU.
If you want me to put up with this horseshit, you need to give me something in return, like a free console, games or Live subscription. Until then, FUCK YOU.
Steam is not the sole, take-it-or-leave-it offering on PC.
And XBox is not the sole take-it-or-leave-it offering on console games. Don't like Xbox One's digital shop? Buy a Wii or Playstation.
The question shouldn't be how much less than new-price Gamestop sells it for. It should be how much less than their wholesale cost they buy it for. We don't have their wholesale pricelist, but I would estimate there's a pretty big markup. The pittance they pay for used games might even be 50% of their cost for stocking new games.
You haven't checked for a while, have you. Third party developers started being Steam only in 2006. From the link :
"This is a list of games that require Steam authentication, regardless of whether they are purchased at retail or through other digital distribution services. An active Steam account is compulsory in order to authenticate and play these games on a personal computer. Games that also have a non-Steam version available separately are excluded from this list.
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it."
They are experience enhancements. Don't you want to be able to play the Palmolive Virtual Dishwasher Kinect game?
Or how about the Pep Boys quick service oil change time challenge! Fun for you, you will love it!
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
IF you cut out Gamestop from your used games purchasing, you can get used games for half off or even cheaper (as opposed to GS's "Here 10 for your 60 dollar game, we'll resell it for 55"
Allowing cameras from the same company working with the feds, to film you while are naked on the sofa, is a no-no for me.
Bing image search gave me nude pictures of children when trying to find a picture of young Anakin Skywalker. I wouldn't recommend the service to anyone.
DRM keys to unlock media are largely useless. They get shared or they'll require an always on internet connection to validate the instance to be useful as DRM. MS realized this, and took the next step to lock it down. Apparently, people balked in large enough numbers to change that policy. So what happens? DRM is useless again, like it always has been for this use.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
As long as you are not required to participate. I loathe Hulu asking you if this is a good advertising "experience for you" and refuse to click.
Actually I don't even use Hulu anymore. Multiple 30s commercials just like TV meh. I lived through the era of broadcast-only TV where you could not fast forward thru commercials. This is no improvement, Hulu. You've returned people to the dark ages.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
my hardcore Call 'o Duty friends prefer it on the XBox because the dedicated servers make a huge difference. That's really why Sony's following suit with their own version of XBL. You really do want/need dedicated servers for multiplayer. Heck, Quake 2 had them in what, 1995...?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Kinect may offer you a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' style narrative in which you speak commands or give orders to an ad as it's playing to change the final outcome.
I'm thinking skip or some variation of f-word will be the more common commands issued when ads appear.
Microsoft knows that most gamers really won't give a shit. FFS, people generally don't give a shit about ANYTHING these days aside from who died in the latest Game of Thrones and how many times Justin Bieber puked on stage. We've been slowly conditioned over the past few decades to care less and less about this stuff. There will be no uproar.
informative +1
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Welcome to Earth. This is how our overlords do things.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
PC games
Complete sentence?
Whatever you meant, it was lame, because I've bought used PC games on eBay, although I was just talking about console games.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you told anyone three decades ago that you'd have to turn to Russia as a US citizen if you wanted liberty and privacy...
The times sure are a'changing.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Come play my lord.
Ok after the whole backing off of the crap they were going to do with the Xbox One I was in and was going to get one. Now I am out again. I don't want ads, I hate them on tv, I really hate them on the internet, but I refuse to be bombarded with them on a console.
While I do appreciate your views, the use of offensive language is completely unnecessary.
Kriston
That's why I do most of my used game shopping from Amazon. Great prices and, overall, a great company that has given excellent customer support to me over the years (along with their subsidiaries, especially Woot).
Nope, it was not useless. It was a minimally invasive way of giving protection software. I never ever shared a key with anyone, and own hundreds of titles with a key that I purchased over the last couple decades. In my case, the protection works as intended. Since keys are still being used with the same success today, I think it's safe to assume that my situation and respect of the "key" is not unique. On the contrary, I believe my respect for the law and well being of people working in the industry is the majority perspective.
An extension of your logic would be to claim "Since the law prevented a person from being prosecuted for murder, all prosecution for murder is useless." That is not a logical or rational thought process. The same rules of society should apply, as should the same rules of logic and rational thinking. We don't lock everyone in prison to prevent murder, we teach the law and prosecute what we can. The same approach works very well with any criminal act. DRM that works is not so much a jail, but a way of educating and offering reminders of the rules. When a person shares the key and is caught, they should be prosecuted.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Strike 3, yer out!
Xbox One, I didn't even get to know you.
Xbox One RIP
2013 (mid) - 2013 (late-mid)
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Sharing keys is a violation of the EULA. Sharing keys without copying the disk is pointless. Copying the disk in and of itself is no problem, although it might be a violation of the EULA as well. Distributing a copied disk is already covered as a violation of copyright. So DRM is still useless in this scenario as it enforces nothing. The fact that all DRM'd software you'd care to download is available on pirate sites is a trumpeting testament to exactly how ineffective and useless current DRM is as long as the lock and key are both held by the user. As soon as you separate the key, which is what MS tried to do, then you have a much more secure system that becomes much more difficult to break, as your options for DRM become much more interesting.
You sure suck at arguing or you attempted to inject the most and most densely packed fallacies into a single post I've ever seen. First, you tried argumentum ad ignorantiam, by asserting DRM in its current form is not useless. Then several red herrings combined with moral high ground fallacies of "minimally invasive", respect of key, law, and people working in the industry (you could go either way with the last few). Then you load up a strawman and appeal to worse problems with regards to murder. Then incorporate some Reductio Ad Absurdum in the "lock everyone in prison" to finally some Appeal To Widespread Belief, that DRM is "educating" or "offering reminders of the rules".
I missed a few in there, and some may actually be parts of others, such as the Bad Analogy (murder again). But there's only so much time in the day. Kudos. I'm impressed.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Well, you just failed miserably at reading the Wiki page for fallacy and deciding that know everything about fallacy? If I provide working examples of something, it can not be an argument from ignorance you twat! Your _opinion_ is that you don't like it, but to deny it works when there is proof positive that it does, it is _you_ arguing a false statement, not someone else committing fallacy.
My claim that CD Keys are worth something is very valid. How many Windows users running valid copies of Windows does Microsoft have which prove my assertion that the technology works? Go ask Microsoft. Before you claim foul, or what ever you are going to invent as a fallacy, game makers like EA and Ubisoft have used the same key to similar effects.
As stated, the concept of the key is not purely about jailing software. For jailing you need to spend a lot of money on products like FlexLM or i4LS. Instead of making false fallacy claims, why not go to the people who developed and use the technology? Microsoft realizes that they can't make that technology pirate proof, but they can nag and track you if you use pirated versions and connect to the internet.
Minimally invasive is not a fallacy oh "low of IQ"! It's a description from the designers on what they wanted to do with the technology.
I don't care if you dislike the comparative analogy, it works very well. Substitute any other crime and deterrent into with the statement "Piracy defeats CD keys so they are useless" and you get the same result. Look, I realize that basic logic may be very difficult for you, so let me give a few examples.
Murders didn't get caught by forensics, so forensics is useless.
Car thieves can circumvent locks on car doors and ignitions, so locks are useless.
Do you see how that works? It's very basic logic but you will surely need lots of practice.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You provided no working examples, you did provide some anecdotes.
The mere presence of warez sites full of cracked copies of anything you'd care to name disproves your "effectiveness of DRM" claim. That the majority of people own legit copies is irrelevant. It doesn't even prove that people are honest, as they might not know about the warez sites, so never had another option. Or maybe they do, and they are honest. See how that works?
I have to throw a statement in here - even if I owned an EA or Ubisoft game - I'd never install their DRM crap. I'd crack or obtain a cracked version and run DRM free. I don't need their crapware DRM ruining my system, thank you very much.
Piracy doesn't defeat the CD keys. People do, for whatever reason. If you make CD key DRM too difficult, or if a user loses the CD key and cannot or will not buy a new copy but still feels entitled to play the copy they bought, then cracking the software becomes the only option. Are they pirates? No, they bought a legit copy. Are they breaking the law? Until the DMCA - no. Morally? No. But we're getting off topic.
So we go back to your failed analogies - they're false, and apparently you can't make a real argument. So now you fall back to insulting and belittling remarks. Another "fallacy" approach, although the actual name escapes me at the moment. You just keep going, do you have a checklist? Can you address any of the actual points made in 3 posts now? I'm sure we are all on the edge of our seats.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Microsoft, EA, and Ubisoft using Keys is not an example and is an anecdote? The rest of your comments demonstrate that you either can't read, or can't comprehend what you read. Wholly shit you are handicapped. Have fun in your fantasy land, I'll read no more of your delusional rantings.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
No - they are not - they are counter-examples, since all their products are available on warez sites.
You apparently are devoid of logic and debating skills. Try and have a good day.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.