False. They do in fact start thinking about that, at least, if they are a modern system. Older systems don't start thinking about it unless they detect wheel slip, though.
What I mean is - when I slam on the brake pedal, the brakes (regular, ABS or antilock) do what it is told, which is "stop the car safely as quickly as possible". Regular brakes may not do a good enough job, especially if the road is slippery. ABS do that by detecting when the wheel slips and releasing the brakes for a fraction of a second, but the result is that the car stops faster. Antilock brakes are even more complex, but their result is that a car stops even faster.
However, the braking system does not disable itself (for example, because there is an idiot who is driving 50cm behind me) or make the car stop slower on purpose ("If I wanted I could stop in 30 meters, but i don't like it, so I will disable the brakes for a few seconds so that the stopping distance would be 100 meters").
Antilock brakes do what I tell them to do - that is stop the car as quickly as possible. The brakes do not start thinking whether this would be a good place to stop or not. I press the brake pedal - the car stops. Power tools with an overheat sensor are doing what I (or the manufacturer) told them - do whatever is told unless you are overheating. On the other hand, I can bypass the overheat sensor, possibly destroying the tool i it overheats, but I can do it.
We seem to have lost sight of it in this country, but there is something in between slavery and doing everything yourself.
Sure, there is paying someone to do it. The thing is - if you create machines that think like humans, they will want equal rights. now, equal rights for humans is not difficult to achieve, since other than some external differences (skin color etc) all humans are the same. The machines would be different, probably better than humans in some ways (no need to sleep for example), as such, they may replace humans in jobs. And if they think like humans then humans will be second-class to the machines. Which, in my opinion, is not good. As an example, watch Babylon 5 and think of a way to give equal rights to normals and telepaths, without giving the telepaths a huge advantage.
Prove it.
OK, quantum mechanics tells us that it is impossible to accurately predict the future (if you knew the location and momentum of all particles in the universe (or at least the solar system), you could calculate the future, but you cannot measure the location and momentum accurately - one location or momentum). Evolution is a process during which species adapt to the environment (sometimes the species adapts, sometimes it goes extinct and is replaced by another species but the result is better adaptation to the environment). Since it is impossible to accurately predict the future, there is no way to know what the environment will be 100 years (will we stop global warming?), 1k or 1M years in the future. So, there is no way to know how to adapt to it without waiting those years and finding out. So, there is no way to say that species x is ultimate target of evolution. Though I guess if you waited until the end of the universe, the species that die out the last could probably be called ultimate, but I'd bet they will be some simple organisms, like bacteria, at least currently some bacteria can survive in harsher environments than multi-celled organisms.
It would need to have an understanding of ownership, sales and purchases.
Not really, if such robots were popular, I am sure stores would provide services to them, that is, the robot would not need to emulate a human in order to buy something. It could order the items online and have them delivered or go to a special terminal at the store and place the order there. That would simplify programming.
. Maybe this is just fuzzy logic and scheduling, but I don't think you'd get the parameters right without strong AI.
I still do not think that you would need a very strong AI for this, or at least not one that can, in its spare time, start thinking about the meaning of life:)
Movies like The Matrix got me thinking: why would I want a sentient machine? What I mean is I want better tools to do whatever I want, but I do not need "thinking" tools that have their own opinions or desires other than "do whatever is told".
Some movie (or maybe anime) I seen had sentient machines and some devices to essentially make them slaves (punish for not thinking the "right" thoughts or doing not as told, I do not remember it clearly). Then why create sentient machines in the first place? Just to have all the problems slave owners had in the past (inefficient work, possibility of rebellion etc)? My computer works really well and I like the fact that it is not sentient - this way it does as I (or the programmers) tell it to do without thinking about it.
As for the evolution - actually, no, evolution does not have an ultimate goal (some perfect species/race). Also, our technology is part of us now. That is, yes, we now have people who would be dead if they were in the past without our medicine/etc. However, with our technology (including medicine) we were able to go to the moon (and hopefully one day to other star systems). Even if Stephen Hawking is physically very defective, he still manages to further our understanding of the universe and, in turn, technology. Why not keep such a man alive as long as possible?
Well, the definition may be such, but the problem that people have with "Acquiring things that don't belong to you" is that the item in question is not longer available to the owner. For example, I really don't care if someone brings a replicator and copies my car - as long as I still have the car. On the other hand, if someone stole my car, my problem would be not that they had the car, but that I no longer had it. Actually, my opinion would be pretty much the same whether someone stole my car or just set it on fire and left it in place since the result wold be the same - me without a car.
Same thing with identity "theft" - the problem is not that someone may use your ID to get into a club or buy booze, it is that by using your ID criminals can steal money from you (get loans in your name, withdraw money from your accounts etc), making the money unavailable to you.
Something like this was in the Soviet Union, at least for music.
The artist got paid for performance. The performance could be in a concert or in a recording studio. you sang, you got paid and that was it. If the recording was audio only, then the state could produce records and play it on the radio without additionally paying the artist. A video recording could be shown in any TV station. So, the artist got paid at most twice for recording the same song - one for radio/records and one for TV. If you do not want to perform, you can work in a factory (or wherever) with the rest of the people. The interesting result of that was that popular artists sometimes did 3 concerts per day (and had lots of recordings). They got paid enough for one concert anyway (assuming the concert hall was at least half-full), but if there was enough audience, a second or third concert would get them more money and not performing at all would get them no money.
So, just as a factory worker was paid for every item he/she produces that passed quality control, so were singers paid for every performance that the people cared about (performing in an empty concert hall would not be profitable).
It's like you serving a jail sentence and suddenly the crime you did was no longer a crime, but moreover it is recognized as never should have being a crime. Not pardoning Turing would be like not giving you a chance to get out. Except it's even less of an "issue" because Turing isn't here to benefit from it, it's just a very good sign to the populace that we've come so far.
Well, since Turing is dead, it does not really matter to him. The pardon would be just for show. Also, was Turing the only gay who was in jail for it? Why then not pardon all the other, non-famous, gay people? Why not review the whole history of the country and pardon everybody who, according to current law and morals, was wrongly imprisoned? What would it change?
To me it seems like this is entirely pointless. What is done is done, and without a time machine we cannot fix it. The man is dead, there is no point of issuing the pardon. On the other hand, if he was still alive (and still in jail) then letting him out would be necessary. If he was still alive (but no longer in jail) then issuing the pardon could probably help him clear the "convict" status (or maybe not), and would still be necessary. As for now - no point at all.
1) Without copyright GPL would not be necessary. If a company took the open source code, modified it and released only the binaries, it would be legal to disassemble it and figure out what the changes were. It would also be legal to distribute the binaries for free, even though the company is asking for money.
2) It looks like/. is against commercial piracy, that is, downloading a movie for yourself is fine, burning it to a DVD and selling said DVD for profit would be bad. If I do not distribute my modified GPL program, I am not in violation of GPL for not distributing the source. Violating GPL for profit is bad.
And the best part is - everyone is stealing the same car! Everyone brings a replicator to just outside the dealership, scans the car inside and the replicator produces a new car In other news, the oil industry is suing everybody and is trying to make replicators illegal because they can create gasoline for free so nobody is buying real gasoline, just using the replicated one.
Yes, I use Windows on my desktop PC,on my laptop and will buy an UMPC with Windows, but this is so that I would have consistency among them (whatever I can run on my desktop, I can run on my laptop or the UMPC, but slower - no need to look for new software that does the same (and has the same data formats) as the software on my desktop). If WP7 supported x86 apps, it would be different, but now it's the same as iOS or Android or Symbian, so I might as well use an OS that is not so locked up.
I used to be a Nokia fan (still am a fan of their older phones) because of the hardware. But now I cannot find a good smartphone that has a keypad (instead of just a touchscreen) so I still use my 6 year old Nokia N93 (among other features, it has a good keypad with big keys).
Probably the vast majority of single-player games can be completed (at least once all the way from start to one ending) within that period. Some games then can be modded or have multiplayer so they can still be interesting.
Almost all movies can be finished (watched at least once from start to end) within the 24hour rental period. So, a lot of people rent them instead of buying them.
Linear games are basically interactive movies (and I like them, especially the adventure/quest/crime ones that are even more like movies) that run longer. So, I do not think that the game industry should complain about video game rental no more than the movie industry complains about movie rentals (or book authors complain about libraries). Used game sales (within a short time frame) are basically extended (and more expensive) rentals, so the game industry should not complain about them too.
So, great. It is possible to finish the game withing the rental period. Which means that I can, well, rent a game (paying $x for it), play it and return it. The result is that the rental store has the game and some money from me.
Then what is the problem with used game sales. I buy a game (and pay $y > $x), play it (maybe for longer than a week), return it and get $z (< $y) back. The result is that I basically rented the game for longer than a week for ($y-$z, which probably is more than the $x I would have paid for the rental, but I got the convenience of a flexible return date). Why is this such a problem?
Well, used cars are not sold at 600% markup (though the people who buy cars that no longer work and disassemble them port still useful parts probably get much more money from the parts than they pay the previous owner of the car) because nobody would buy them - there are a lot of sellers so somebody would sell a car cheaper. Or the price would be very similar to the price of a new car. The price of a used game is lower, which is great because it means people with less money can buy it (instead of waiting for a year or, more likely, just pirating the game).
Yes, selling the used game on ebay would get the gamer more money, but it also takes longer and is less convenient than just bringing it to the store. Or at least the gamer thinks so. Stores like Gamestop are providing valuable service (a way of selling and buying used games quickly), so they should get profit from that.
As for the economy - the economy as a whole is the same. Even piracy does not harm it (because if I pirate a game I'll probably spend the money I saved by pirating a game somewhere else). As for the game industry - movie industry survives even though I can rent a movie, watch it and return it (or just watch the movie on TV). Why is there such a big problem with what amounts to renting games (yes, it's technically buying and selling, but essentially it is the same, just the return date is not fixed). If you want the gamers to not trade in the just released game after a week - make it so the game is still fun after a week for most of them. IIRC you cannot return an opened game to get all money back, but you can return a physical object for a full refund in 14 days. So, somebody who bought "Big Rigs over the road racing" on the release day should be forever stuck with it with no way to get at least some money back? Why the exemption for software but not hardware?
Pawn shops also sell items with a (large) markup. Is that also bad?
Physical media will fail over time too - discs get scratched, broken etc, especially if they are actually used. Also, while multiple people can use the same car to go someplace, only one player can play a game at the same time (for online multiplayer each player has to have his own copy of the game).
Computers will fail over time, but that time is very long compared to how long a game is played or how long new legit copies of the game are being made. It is also long time compared to how fast the computers are advancing. Who can live with the older system (maybe whatever they want to use it for does not require a quad core CPU) does not buy a new one, depriving Intel (or AMD) of their potential profits while giving money to whoever used to own that PC.
The fact that hardware fails in the long term does not matter in the short term. Would the game industry be happy with used sales, provided the games were recorded on recordable discs (that fail within 5-20 years)?
Also: I can rent a movie, watch it and then return in. I can get a book from the library (for free), read it and return it. Why can't I rent a game, beat it and then return it? Why the game industry is so "special" compared to the movie industry? Used game sales are basically rental for those who bought the new games.
New games shouldn't have to compete with used games a week after the game is released.
Why not? If a game is so short lived that it gets sold as used a week after release then it should compete with the new games.
If you want your game to not be sold as used a week after release then make a game that will still be interesting/fun/etc a week after I buy it. I see the used games market as rental - it probably is harder to rent a game (like a movie) because you might want to play it for longer than a day, so you buy it and then sell it as used for less.
Movies are also consumed - I buy it, I watch it and I'm done with it for some time (or I may not want to watch it again ever). So, instead of buying, I can rent the movie. If I want to watch it a few years later, I can rent it again. Or if I want to have it or watch more times, I can buy it and keep it.
I also think that if people sold new cars after a few weeks and bought new ones, the car industry would be really happy. For one, the people who would sell a car after a few weeks will buy a new one from the dealership (not a car that is a few weeks old). So, the total number of cars would increase as the prices for older used cars drop. It would also displace old cars (after all, how many cars does one person need?), which means that the authorized mechanics would not need to support as many old cars as they do now.
Yes, cars wear out, but they can be fixed (and older cars can be fixed easier - one of the reasons I use a 30 year old car - for example, the electrical system is quite simple, compared to newer, computer controlled, cars). Same is true for other older hardware too - tape decks etc.
As for software, while it is essentially immortal (or at least lasts as long as the hardware that supports it), games are different from tools, such as the OS or an office suite. If I can live without the new features (or I actually like the older version better), I can use the old OS for a long time. However, once I am done with a single player game, I might want to replay it after a few years, but not now. Multiplayer games are a bit better in that regard, but I can still get bored and decide I want a new game. So I will sell my used copy of the game to reduce the price on a new game. I do not think that there are a lot of people who play a single game over and over again, while there are a lot of people who use the same OS every day for many years.
Unless Microsoft is going to offer the ability to install Linux on X720, I think it will be cracked quite fast - the PS3 was also cracked fast after the OtherOS feature was removed. Before that, a lot of people did not need to crack it, because they could install Linux on it.
Or, in other words: If you want to pirate a game, there are easier/cheaper ways to do it than buying a game new, making a copy and selling the game as used. You can just go to the pirate bay.
The same can be said about used cars, PCs, electronics, almost any physical object, so what? The way I see it, the industry wants to have it both ways:
When piracy is concerned, the industry says "a copy of a game is a product, pirating it is pretty much like stealing a DVD (or a car)". OK, so I guess my copy of the game is just another physical object and I should treat it like that (after all, I do not copy a lot of physical objects). So, selling a used physical object is perfectly fine - I can sell (or buy) a used car, a tape deck, a PC and many other things. I have bought a lot of used equipment, mostly because I cannot afford new one or it is no longer made. So, if a copy of the game should be treated as a physical object, then it should be perfectly fine for me to sell it or give it away, assuming, of course, that I did not keep a "backup". Except that the industry really does not like it and takes steps to prevent it and make it so when I buy a game, I'm stuck with it forever. When I buy a TV and it turns out I do not like it I can return it (within 14 days) or sell it at a lower price - taking a loss, but still recouping some of the money paid. You don't hear Intel bitching about all those used PCs sold to people. Or Mercedes bitching about used cars. Or just old cars, the way Microsoft is bitching about the fact that people still use Windows XP and *gasp* do not want to pay them money for a slightly better OS.
No, just restore the movie to a hard drive and watch it. Yes, it takes a few minutes (up to a minute for seeking and then a minute for every 1.8GB of file size, so a 10GB 1080p movie takes about 7 minutes), but it is much better than either storing a lot of hard drives (that are more fragile than the tapes) or having ~50 DVDs for every tape.
Also, while the computer is copying the movie from tape to HDD, I can other things, like get the food I'll eat while watching, get the drinks (or make some tea) and so on. Also, if I really needed to watch a movie as soon as possible, I could probably watch it while it is still being copied (since the movie starts from the beginning of the file), essentially streaming the movie from tape while the HDD acts as a buffer.
LTO5 supports a special file system so the tapes can be made accessible via a drive letter. Much like a CD with packet writing format. The drives are insanely expensive for now though.
My connection is uncapped, I regularly upload 20TB or more per month. I do not download as much - about 600GB/month and most of that is probably the ACK packets. My hard drives are not that big:).
Anyway, some internet reviewers release a DVD once in a while, I'm sure the people who record let's plays will send you a DVD if you ask for it (and pay), but I never tried it - I'd rather download all media (too bad there are no legal bluray or DVD images for sale) and record on my own blanks. I do not want to store discs that can only hold up to 9GB, or even 50GB. I can record to LTO2 tapes and have 200GB on a tape that takes less space than a couple of DVDs (in the big boxes).
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False. They do in fact start thinking about that, at least, if they are a modern system. Older systems don't start thinking about it unless they detect wheel slip, though.
What I mean is - when I slam on the brake pedal, the brakes (regular, ABS or antilock) do what it is told, which is "stop the car safely as quickly as possible". Regular brakes may not do a good enough job, especially if the road is slippery. ABS do that by detecting when the wheel slips and releasing the brakes for a fraction of a second, but the result is that the car stops faster. Antilock brakes are even more complex, but their result is that a car stops even faster.
However, the braking system does not disable itself (for example, because there is an idiot who is driving 50cm behind me) or make the car stop slower on purpose ("If I wanted I could stop in 30 meters, but i don't like it, so I will disable the brakes for a few seconds so that the stopping distance would be 100 meters").
Antilock brakes are another good example
Antilock brakes do what I tell them to do - that is stop the car as quickly as possible. The brakes do not start thinking whether this would be a good place to stop or not. I press the brake pedal - the car stops.
Power tools with an overheat sensor are doing what I (or the manufacturer) told them - do whatever is told unless you are overheating. On the other hand, I can bypass the overheat sensor, possibly destroying the tool i it overheats, but I can do it.
We seem to have lost sight of it in this country, but there is something in between slavery and doing everything yourself.
Sure, there is paying someone to do it.
The thing is - if you create machines that think like humans, they will want equal rights. now, equal rights for humans is not difficult to achieve, since other than some external differences (skin color etc) all humans are the same. The machines would be different, probably better than humans in some ways (no need to sleep for example), as such, they may replace humans in jobs. And if they think like humans then humans will be second-class to the machines. Which, in my opinion, is not good.
As an example, watch Babylon 5 and think of a way to give equal rights to normals and telepaths, without giving the telepaths a huge advantage.
Prove it.
OK, quantum mechanics tells us that it is impossible to accurately predict the future (if you knew the location and momentum of all particles in the universe (or at least the solar system), you could calculate the future, but you cannot measure the location and momentum accurately - one location or momentum). Evolution is a process during which species adapt to the environment (sometimes the species adapts, sometimes it goes extinct and is replaced by another species but the result is better adaptation to the environment). Since it is impossible to accurately predict the future, there is no way to know what the environment will be 100 years (will we stop global warming?), 1k or 1M years in the future. So, there is no way to know how to adapt to it without waiting those years and finding out. So, there is no way to say that species x is ultimate target of evolution. Though I guess if you waited until the end of the universe, the species that die out the last could probably be called ultimate, but I'd bet they will be some simple organisms, like bacteria, at least currently some bacteria can survive in harsher environments than multi-celled organisms.
It would need to have an understanding of ownership, sales and purchases.
Not really, if such robots were popular, I am sure stores would provide services to them, that is, the robot would not need to emulate a human in order to buy something. It could order the items online and have them delivered or go to a special terminal at the store and place the order there. That would simplify programming.
. Maybe this is just fuzzy logic and scheduling, but I don't think you'd get the parameters right without strong AI.
I still do not think that you would need a very strong AI for this, or at least not one that can, in its spare time, start thinking about the meaning of life :)
Movies like The Matrix got me thinking: why would I want a sentient machine? What I mean is I want better tools to do whatever I want, but I do not need "thinking" tools that have their own opinions or desires other than "do whatever is told".
Some movie (or maybe anime) I seen had sentient machines and some devices to essentially make them slaves (punish for not thinking the "right" thoughts or doing not as told, I do not remember it clearly). Then why create sentient machines in the first place? Just to have all the problems slave owners had in the past (inefficient work, possibility of rebellion etc)? My computer works really well and I like the fact that it is not sentient - this way it does as I (or the programmers) tell it to do without thinking about it.
As for the evolution - actually, no, evolution does not have an ultimate goal (some perfect species/race). Also, our technology is part of us now. That is, yes, we now have people who would be dead if they were in the past without our medicine/etc. However, with our technology (including medicine) we were able to go to the moon (and hopefully one day to other star systems). Even if Stephen Hawking is physically very defective, he still manages to further our understanding of the universe and, in turn, technology. Why not keep such a man alive as long as possible?
Well, the definition may be such, but the problem that people have with "Acquiring things that don't belong to you" is that the item in question is not longer available to the owner. For example, I really don't care if someone brings a replicator and copies my car - as long as I still have the car. On the other hand, if someone stole my car, my problem would be not that they had the car, but that I no longer had it. Actually, my opinion would be pretty much the same whether someone stole my car or just set it on fire and left it in place since the result wold be the same - me without a car.
Same thing with identity "theft" - the problem is not that someone may use your ID to get into a club or buy booze, it is that by using your ID criminals can steal money from you (get loans in your name, withdraw money from your accounts etc), making the money unavailable to you.
Something like this was in the Soviet Union, at least for music.
The artist got paid for performance. The performance could be in a concert or in a recording studio. you sang, you got paid and that was it. If the recording was audio only, then the state could produce records and play it on the radio without additionally paying the artist. A video recording could be shown in any TV station. So, the artist got paid at most twice for recording the same song - one for radio/records and one for TV. If you do not want to perform, you can work in a factory (or wherever) with the rest of the people.
The interesting result of that was that popular artists sometimes did 3 concerts per day (and had lots of recordings). They got paid enough for one concert anyway (assuming the concert hall was at least half-full), but if there was enough audience, a second or third concert would get them more money and not performing at all would get them no money.
So, just as a factory worker was paid for every item he/she produces that passed quality control, so were singers paid for every performance that the people cared about (performing in an empty concert hall would not be profitable).
It's like you serving a jail sentence and suddenly the crime you did was no longer a crime, but moreover it is recognized as never should have being a crime. Not pardoning Turing would be like not giving you a chance to get out. Except it's even less of an "issue" because Turing isn't here to benefit from it, it's just a very good sign to the populace that we've come so far.
Well, since Turing is dead, it does not really matter to him. The pardon would be just for show. Also, was Turing the only gay who was in jail for it? Why then not pardon all the other, non-famous, gay people? Why not review the whole history of the country and pardon everybody who, according to current law and morals, was wrongly imprisoned?
What would it change?
To me it seems like this is entirely pointless. What is done is done, and without a time machine we cannot fix it. The man is dead, there is no point of issuing the pardon. On the other hand, if he was still alive (and still in jail) then letting him out would be necessary. If he was still alive (but no longer in jail) then issuing the pardon could probably help him clear the "convict" status (or maybe not), and would still be necessary. As for now - no point at all.
As much as I like durable hardware, I like laptop-style keyboards more :)
Thanks for the recommendation :) I will check that anime out :)
So, like in the anime "Rocket Girls"?
1) Without copyright GPL would not be necessary. If a company took the open source code, modified it and released only the binaries, it would be legal to disassemble it and figure out what the changes were. It would also be legal to distribute the binaries for free, even though the company is asking for money.
2) It looks like /. is against commercial piracy, that is, downloading a movie for yourself is fine, burning it to a DVD and selling said DVD for profit would be bad. If I do not distribute my modified GPL program, I am not in violation of GPL for not distributing the source. Violating GPL for profit is bad.
See? It's quite consistent.
And the best part is - everyone is stealing the same car! Everyone brings a replicator to just outside the dealership, scans the car inside and the replicator produces a new car In other news, the oil industry is suing everybody and is trying to make replicators illegal because they can create gasoline for free so nobody is buying real gasoline, just using the replicated one.
Are there any phones running that OS that have a keypad? Typing SMS on a virtual keyboard sucks.
Yea, or at least make a good OS.
Yes, I use Windows on my desktop PC,on my laptop and will buy an UMPC with Windows, but this is so that I would have consistency among them (whatever I can run on my desktop, I can run on my laptop or the UMPC, but slower - no need to look for new software that does the same (and has the same data formats) as the software on my desktop). If WP7 supported x86 apps, it would be different, but now it's the same as iOS or Android or Symbian, so I might as well use an OS that is not so locked up.
I used to be a Nokia fan (still am a fan of their older phones) because of the hardware. But now I cannot find a good smartphone that has a keypad (instead of just a touchscreen) so I still use my 6 year old Nokia N93 (among other features, it has a good keypad with big keys).
Probably the vast majority of single-player games can be completed (at least once all the way from start to one ending) within that period. Some games then can be modded or have multiplayer so they can still be interesting.
Almost all movies can be finished (watched at least once from start to end) within the 24hour rental period. So, a lot of people rent them instead of buying them.
Linear games are basically interactive movies (and I like them, especially the adventure/quest/crime ones that are even more like movies) that run longer. So, I do not think that the game industry should complain about video game rental no more than the movie industry complains about movie rentals (or book authors complain about libraries). Used game sales (within a short time frame) are basically extended (and more expensive) rentals, so the game industry should not complain about them too.
So, great. It is possible to finish the game withing the rental period. Which means that I can, well, rent a game (paying $x for it), play it and return it. The result is that the rental store has the game and some money from me.
Then what is the problem with used game sales. I buy a game (and pay $y > $x), play it (maybe for longer than a week), return it and get $z (< $y) back. The result is that I basically rented the game for longer than a week for ($y-$z, which probably is more than the $x I would have paid for the rental, but I got the convenience of a flexible return date). Why is this such a problem?
Well, used cars are not sold at 600% markup (though the people who buy cars that no longer work and disassemble them port still useful parts probably get much more money from the parts than they pay the previous owner of the car) because nobody would buy them - there are a lot of sellers so somebody would sell a car cheaper. Or the price would be very similar to the price of a new car. The price of a used game is lower, which is great because it means people with less money can buy it (instead of waiting for a year or, more likely, just pirating the game).
Yes, selling the used game on ebay would get the gamer more money, but it also takes longer and is less convenient than just bringing it to the store. Or at least the gamer thinks so. Stores like Gamestop are providing valuable service (a way of selling and buying used games quickly), so they should get profit from that.
As for the economy - the economy as a whole is the same. Even piracy does not harm it (because if I pirate a game I'll probably spend the money I saved by pirating a game somewhere else). As for the game industry - movie industry survives even though I can rent a movie, watch it and return it (or just watch the movie on TV). Why is there such a big problem with what amounts to renting games (yes, it's technically buying and selling, but essentially it is the same, just the return date is not fixed). If you want the gamers to not trade in the just released game after a week - make it so the game is still fun after a week for most of them. IIRC you cannot return an opened game to get all money back, but you can return a physical object for a full refund in 14 days. So, somebody who bought "Big Rigs over the road racing" on the release day should be forever stuck with it with no way to get at least some money back? Why the exemption for software but not hardware?
Pawn shops also sell items with a (large) markup. Is that also bad?
Physical media will fail over time too - discs get scratched, broken etc, especially if they are actually used.
Also, while multiple people can use the same car to go someplace, only one player can play a game at the same time (for online multiplayer each player has to have his own copy of the game).
Computers will fail over time, but that time is very long compared to how long a game is played or how long new legit copies of the game are being made. It is also long time compared to how fast the computers are advancing. Who can live with the older system (maybe whatever they want to use it for does not require a quad core CPU) does not buy a new one, depriving Intel (or AMD) of their potential profits while giving money to whoever used to own that PC.
The fact that hardware fails in the long term does not matter in the short term. Would the game industry be happy with used sales, provided the games were recorded on recordable discs (that fail within 5-20 years)?
Also: I can rent a movie, watch it and then return in. I can get a book from the library (for free), read it and return it. Why can't I rent a game, beat it and then return it? Why the game industry is so "special" compared to the movie industry? Used game sales are basically rental for those who bought the new games.
New games shouldn't have to compete with used games a week after the game is released.
Why not? If a game is so short lived that it gets sold as used a week after release then it should compete with the new games.
If you want your game to not be sold as used a week after release then make a game that will still be interesting/fun/etc a week after I buy it. I see the used games market as rental - it probably is harder to rent a game (like a movie) because you might want to play it for longer than a day, so you buy it and then sell it as used for less.
Movies are also consumed - I buy it, I watch it and I'm done with it for some time (or I may not want to watch it again ever). So, instead of buying, I can rent the movie. If I want to watch it a few years later, I can rent it again. Or if I want to have it or watch more times, I can buy it and keep it.
I also think that if people sold new cars after a few weeks and bought new ones, the car industry would be really happy. For one, the people who would sell a car after a few weeks will buy a new one from the dealership (not a car that is a few weeks old). So, the total number of cars would increase as the prices for older used cars drop. It would also displace old cars (after all, how many cars does one person need?), which means that the authorized mechanics would not need to support as many old cars as they do now.
Yes, cars wear out, but they can be fixed (and older cars can be fixed easier - one of the reasons I use a 30 year old car - for example, the electrical system is quite simple, compared to newer, computer controlled, cars). Same is true for other older hardware too - tape decks etc.
As for software, while it is essentially immortal (or at least lasts as long as the hardware that supports it), games are different from tools, such as the OS or an office suite. If I can live without the new features (or I actually like the older version better), I can use the old OS for a long time. However, once I am done with a single player game, I might want to replay it after a few years, but not now. Multiplayer games are a bit better in that regard, but I can still get bored and decide I want a new game. So I will sell my used copy of the game to reduce the price on a new game. I do not think that there are a lot of people who play a single game over and over again, while there are a lot of people who use the same OS every day for many years.
Unless Microsoft is going to offer the ability to install Linux on X720, I think it will be cracked quite fast - the PS3 was also cracked fast after the OtherOS feature was removed. Before that, a lot of people did not need to crack it, because they could install Linux on it.
Or, in other words:
If you want to pirate a game, there are easier/cheaper ways to do it than buying a game new, making a copy and selling the game as used. You can just go to the pirate bay.
The same can be said about used cars, PCs, electronics, almost any physical object, so what? The way I see it, the industry wants to have it both ways:
When piracy is concerned, the industry says "a copy of a game is a product, pirating it is pretty much like stealing a DVD (or a car)". OK, so I guess my copy of the game is just another physical object and I should treat it like that (after all, I do not copy a lot of physical objects).
So, selling a used physical object is perfectly fine - I can sell (or buy) a used car, a tape deck, a PC and many other things. I have bought a lot of used equipment, mostly because I cannot afford new one or it is no longer made. So, if a copy of the game should be treated as a physical object, then it should be perfectly fine for me to sell it or give it away, assuming, of course, that I did not keep a "backup". Except that the industry really does not like it and takes steps to prevent it and make it so when I buy a game, I'm stuck with it forever. When I buy a TV and it turns out I do not like it I can return it (within 14 days) or sell it at a lower price - taking a loss, but still recouping some of the money paid.
You don't hear Intel bitching about all those used PCs sold to people. Or Mercedes bitching about used cars. Or just old cars, the way Microsoft is bitching about the fact that people still use Windows XP and *gasp* do not want to pay them money for a slightly better OS.
No, just restore the movie to a hard drive and watch it. Yes, it takes a few minutes (up to a minute for seeking and then a minute for every 1.8GB of file size, so a 10GB 1080p movie takes about 7 minutes), but it is much better than either storing a lot of hard drives (that are more fragile than the tapes) or having ~50 DVDs for every tape.
Also, while the computer is copying the movie from tape to HDD, I can other things, like get the food I'll eat while watching, get the drinks (or make some tea) and so on. Also, if I really needed to watch a movie as soon as possible, I could probably watch it while it is still being copied (since the movie starts from the beginning of the file), essentially streaming the movie from tape while the HDD acts as a buffer.
LTO5 supports a special file system so the tapes can be made accessible via a drive letter. Much like a CD with packet writing format. The drives are insanely expensive for now though.
My connection is uncapped, I regularly upload 20TB or more per month. I do not download as much - about 600GB/month and most of that is probably the ACK packets. My hard drives are not that big :).
Anyway, some internet reviewers release a DVD once in a while, I'm sure the people who record let's plays will send you a DVD if you ask for it (and pay), but I never tried it - I'd rather download all media (too bad there are no legal bluray or DVD images for sale) and record on my own blanks. I do not want to store discs that can only hold up to 9GB, or even 50GB. I can record to LTO2 tapes and have 200GB on a tape that takes less space than a couple of DVDs (in the big boxes).