Y'know, though, the thing Mark's on about (which isn't clear from the above) is that these stores are aggregators who are *actively* ripping off developers.
"I'd like a copy of Madden 2005, please."
Store clerk notices that there's a used copy available, so hands you that.
You're not even asked anymore, because the clerks are trained to give out used in preference to new. Trained not even to ask!
Using cars as an analogy is pretty weak, simply because buying a new car gives you real advantages over buying a used one. Warranty, for one. The fact that it's new and yours to drive without oil for another.
I don't think that game developers have any problem with people reselling their games. I think they have a problem with the people they want to distribute and sell their product actually preferring to sell a used version of that product.
Imagine if you went to the movie theatre and they offered to sell you a copy for less than the ticket price, but you just had to take the disc home to watch it?...and you could sell back that disc after you were done with it, if you wanted.
I totally understand why independent game developers don't like resales of their games. As games get more and more expensive to make, I'm guessing the resale industry (as opposed to people selling on ebay or among acquaintances) is going to hasten the move to some DRM as a solution and that is something I surely don't want. Yes, I've been burned by many game purchases that sucked. Yes, I wish game developers could give us more content that was interesting and didn't make me "finish" it at any time, but the fact is, for the games *I* want to play, I want a compelling and interesting story that actually comes to an end. Best Buy, EB, and Gamestop selling as many used copies as new of a particular title means that it's that much less likely for a followup to that title.
Heh, maybe that's cause that's when he wrote it?;) I met Thatcher at GDC in 2001 and at that time, as I recall, it had been "in the can" for some time...
It amazes me at how dumb slashdotters are. First thing I tried when the provided link didn't work was go up a level in the hierarchy (in this case strip off the script name) and download the 3M zip of the images in a handful of seconds...
Ahh well- guess you don't have to pass any tests to read/. so we get what we get. I just wonder why the N of these sorts of posts even got modded up!
CD-R's are either very slow, one time burns, or very slow, very incompatible CD-RW's. Neither is good if I need to sneakernet a bit of data.
Huh? CD-Rs hold 600M, you can burn to them over and over if you only are copying a small bit of data, and they're faster to write to than a floppy. CD-RWs are slightly slower with the added bonus that you can write over what was there before. These are faster than a floppy too. I've got a few CD (recent-purchase) drives that don't do multisession, but if I were to want to sneakernet then I'd certainly just do the right thing. Never had a problem reading CD-Rs or CD-RWs on any hardware that was made in the last, oh, 6 years or so.
I bought a Dell laptop the other day. The floppy was a $40 option. I thought that was ridiculous but decided to save the cash because it comes with a CD-RW and all of my other machines besides my firewall have burners too. If for some reason the wireless failed to come up and my ethernet got chopped up into bits, you can be damn sure I'd rather copy files on CD than floppy...
Nintendo would have to be insane to release an entirely new handheld system with an entirely library of completely incompatible games so hot on the heels of the wildly successful GBA.
huh? By all reports (of which I can't find any public ones) the GBA was a failure for Nintendo, not selling anywhere near the volume that they had hoped.
Gamasutra (registration required) says sales are down 60% in the last half of last year, wish I could turn up more public info on the dismal GBA sales... However, that the GameCube is outselling the GBA should be indication enough that Nintendo is in a tough spot with this one.
Slashdot Mirror
Y'know, though, the thing Mark's on about (which isn't clear from the above) is that these stores are aggregators who are *actively* ripping off developers.
...and you could sell back that disc after you were done with it, if you wanted.
"I'd like a copy of Madden 2005, please."
Store clerk notices that there's a used copy available, so hands you that.
You're not even asked anymore, because the clerks are trained to give out used in preference to new. Trained not even to ask!
Using cars as an analogy is pretty weak, simply because buying a new car gives you real advantages over buying a used one. Warranty, for one. The fact that it's new and yours to drive without oil for another.
I don't think that game developers have any problem with people reselling their games. I think they have a problem with the people they want to distribute and sell their product actually preferring to sell a used version of that product.
Imagine if you went to the movie theatre and they offered to sell you a copy for less than the ticket price, but you just had to take the disc home to watch it?
I totally understand why independent game developers don't like resales of their games. As games get more and more expensive to make, I'm guessing the resale industry (as opposed to people selling on ebay or among acquaintances) is going to hasten the move to some DRM as a solution and that is something I surely don't want. Yes, I've been burned by many game purchases that sucked. Yes, I wish game developers could give us more content that was interesting and didn't make me "finish" it at any time, but the fact is, for the games *I* want to play, I want a compelling and interesting story that actually comes to an end. Best Buy, EB, and Gamestop selling as many used copies as new of a particular title means that it's that much less likely for a followup to that title.
Heh, maybe that's cause that's when he wrote it? ;) I met Thatcher at GDC in 2001 and at that time, as I recall, it had been "in the can" for some time...
It amazes me at how dumb slashdotters are. First thing I tried when the provided link didn't work was go up a level in the hierarchy (in this case strip off the script name) and download the 3M zip of the images in a handful of seconds...
/. so we get what we get. I just wonder why the N of these sorts of posts even got modded up!
Ahh well- guess you don't have to pass any tests to read
Huh? CD-Rs hold 600M, you can burn to them over and over if you only are copying a small bit of data, and they're faster to write to than a floppy. CD-RWs are slightly slower with the added bonus that you can write over what was there before. These are faster than a floppy too. I've got a few CD (recent-purchase) drives that don't do multisession, but if I were to want to sneakernet then I'd certainly just do the right thing. Never had a problem reading CD-Rs or CD-RWs on any hardware that was made in the last, oh, 6 years or so.
I bought a Dell laptop the other day. The floppy was a $40 option. I thought that was ridiculous but decided to save the cash because it comes with a CD-RW and all of my other machines besides my firewall have burners too. If for some reason the wireless failed to come up and my ethernet got chopped up into bits, you can be damn sure I'd rather copy files on CD than floppy...