"...try the exact same thing again." Or maybe more appropriately was Ben Franklin's quote: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
So they release one copy protection after another, spending gobs of money that translates to increased cost to the end user, and ultimately they're all cracked in less time than it took to develop them. Why not try a different approach for a change, instead of having the audacity to think that eventually you can come up with an unbreakable copy protection?
The bottom line, (imo), is that some people will always pirate, and some will always pay the asking price. Forget about these two groups, and focus on the people in the middle who would buy your product if you simply made an offer they'd be interested in paying for. Piracy is about getting something for less than what you could get it for off the store shelf, and unless you cut costs and lower DVD prices, these people are going to copy/burn/download/bootleg your product unless you make the retail package, (being more than just price) more appealing than the piracy route.
As it stands, what I see here is that you can legitimately buy the DVD, and play it at reduced resolution on your early HDTV, or you can wait for the copy protection to be broken and get a pirated copy that plays at full quality. Where's the incentive for buying your product now??
In somewhat related news, global terrorists are researching large scale EMP devices. Evil hackers, on the other hand, are studying Windows source to find an exploit to cause new magnetic hard drives to generate their own EMP.
You mean my Playstation does more than play CD's? That's all I bought it for...
The longstanding comparison/rivalry between the PC and the console in terms of gaming device has always boiled down to this difference: a computer is designed for expandability and upgradability, a console system is designed for compatibility. A quick Google search will give you countless cases of people needing technical support to get games to work on their pc, from the old days of DOS boot disks to DirectX upgrades to faster video cards and more RAM.
My opinion: An average pc is a multifunctional device, a console is a gaming device. When you buy a console system, it should be able to handle every game that will ever be released for it without having to upgrade. Let a CD player play CD's, a telephone make phone calls, and a console gaming system play games. Anything they do extra should be an added feature, not a requirement.
There are console gamers and there are pc gamers. To blur the lines between console systems and pc's would be taking away features that people prefer over the alternative. What console gamer wants to find out they can't play the latest video games because you need to buy the new Sony/Intel processor? If you want a flat price for a system that's guaranteed to work with the games released for it, you want a console. If you want to add to your system to make it compatible with mostly everything released, then you want a PC.
That's got to be the scariest concept to me: losing the ability to buy software, and having to pay recurring fees. As a big fan of replaying old games for nostalgia, will I have to continue to pay a monthly licensing fee to play Ultima 4 or Doom 2 one day?
For whatever the future holds, massive change is historically filled with fear of the unknown, and rarely is it beneficial to EVERYONE....tho I have to wonder: even in today's *modern* world you can buy vinyl records of current music. Is it really so unlikely that we'd still have the option of buying a physical copy of the software if we chose? Even if it's a mail-order process...
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.comics.com/comics/dilbert/archive/image s/dilbert2006073272217.gif
Dilbert with the current event commentary: Show up early, be stood upon!
"...try the exact same thing again." Or maybe more appropriately was Ben Franklin's quote: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
So they release one copy protection after another, spending gobs of money that translates to increased cost to the end user, and ultimately they're all cracked in less time than it took to develop them. Why not try a different approach for a change, instead of having the audacity to think that eventually you can come up with an unbreakable copy protection?
The bottom line, (imo), is that some people will always pirate, and some will always pay the asking price. Forget about these two groups, and focus on the people in the middle who would buy your product if you simply made an offer they'd be interested in paying for. Piracy is about getting something for less than what you could get it for off the store shelf, and unless you cut costs and lower DVD prices, these people are going to copy/burn/download/bootleg your product unless you make the retail package, (being more than just price) more appealing than the piracy route.
As it stands, what I see here is that you can legitimately buy the DVD, and play it at reduced resolution on your early HDTV, or you can wait for the copy protection to be broken and get a pirated copy that plays at full quality. Where's the incentive for buying your product now??
In somewhat related news, global terrorists are researching large scale EMP devices. Evil hackers, on the other hand, are studying Windows source to find an exploit to cause new magnetic hard drives to generate their own EMP.
You mean my Playstation does more than play CD's? That's all I bought it for... The longstanding comparison/rivalry between the PC and the console in terms of gaming device has always boiled down to this difference: a computer is designed for expandability and upgradability, a console system is designed for compatibility. A quick Google search will give you countless cases of people needing technical support to get games to work on their pc, from the old days of DOS boot disks to DirectX upgrades to faster video cards and more RAM. My opinion: An average pc is a multifunctional device, a console is a gaming device. When you buy a console system, it should be able to handle every game that will ever be released for it without having to upgrade. Let a CD player play CD's, a telephone make phone calls, and a console gaming system play games. Anything they do extra should be an added feature, not a requirement. There are console gamers and there are pc gamers. To blur the lines between console systems and pc's would be taking away features that people prefer over the alternative. What console gamer wants to find out they can't play the latest video games because you need to buy the new Sony/Intel processor? If you want a flat price for a system that's guaranteed to work with the games released for it, you want a console. If you want to add to your system to make it compatible with mostly everything released, then you want a PC.
That's got to be the scariest concept to me: losing the ability to buy software, and having to pay recurring fees. As a big fan of replaying old games for nostalgia, will I have to continue to pay a monthly licensing fee to play Ultima 4 or Doom 2 one day? For whatever the future holds, massive change is historically filled with fear of the unknown, and rarely is it beneficial to EVERYONE. ...tho I have to wonder: even in today's *modern* world you can buy vinyl records of current music. Is it really so unlikely that we'd still have the option of buying a physical copy of the software if we chose? Even if it's a mail-order process...