Used Games = Piracy?

[Kim]

I think the best thing I heard about this I heard on Twitter.

Nothing as precious as a rich dude lecturing about the ethics of Capitalism

[Fifthfiend]

The more this goes on the more I'm waiting for Jerry Holkins to literally transform into John Galt.

[Hanuman]

Remember kiddies, never reduce, reuse or recycle.
It's unethical.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

I don't know how to stress that. The industry DOESN'T equate second-hand sales to piracy. They're just not giving away DLC for free. They're not making you pay to make the game function. The idea that the industry is thinking the way PA thinks they're thinking is nothing short of stupid.

Except for Cory Ledesma, creative director for THQ, who specifically says that used buyers are cheating them and that additional content is a reward to original buyers for their loyalty, which is what started this whole thing.

But hey thanks for callin' me stupid.

Originally Posted by Krylo

Speaking of, that's a great analogy.

It's a great analogy in that the person buying the used car would be completely right to be pissed off that the satellite subscription was nontransferrable, which would be ridiculous.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

Except for Cory Ledesma, creative director for THQ, who specifically says that used buyers are cheating them and that additional content is a reward to original buyers for their loyalty, which is what started this whole thing.

But hey thanks for callin' me stupid.

Creative director isn't paid to be smooth, for one, and for two, if you'd read the article I posted, there's a guy also from THQ who says they'll be including a full DLC pack with the online play because he wants second-hand buyers to feel like they're getting more than a "get out of jail" card.

Aside from that, feeling cheated isn't the same as calling it piracy, which he specifically didn't do when he spoke on the issue. I read the quote. Piracy is something entirely distinct from that and the second-hand market is NOT being treated the same, or else you'd have to pay a fee to play the actual game, rather than unlock the online content, which in a wrestling game is frankly not all that important.

In short, what I said wasn't wrong. Maybe unnecessarily confrontational, but not wrong.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Aside from that, feeling cheated isn't the same as calling it piracy

It actually is the same in every meaningful substantive sense which relates to this issue.

But I mean you're right they are different words, with syllables and letters and everything.

But you certainly did link to THQ's post-facto damage control, which means... nothing whatsoever, because it's post-facto damage control.

Originally Posted by POS Industries

Yep.

That's not even the right logical fallacy to wrongly accuse people of in relation to what you were talking about, and is pretty much just an amazing non sequitur.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

It actually is the same in every meaningful substantive sense which relates to this issue.

But I mean you're right they are different words, with syllables and letters and everything.

But you certainly did link to THQ's post-facto damage control, which means... nothing whatsoever, because it's post-facto damage control.

I'll give that to you.



On the other hand, I think we can agree that disabling online portions of the game is not a very good anti-piracy measure. Given that doing so is much like refusing to put a cherry on a banana split and therefore does not serve as much of a deterrent.

There is a difference between combating piracy and rewarding original purchases. Both deal with the company's profits, yes, but both are treated distinctly.

The goal of anti-piracy measures is to attempt to make the game unplayable for the pirates. Removing online functionality in a largely single-player game doesn't serve that. If they'd been going anti-piracy, they would have disabled one's ability to play the game entirely. With consoles being online now, this isn't actually all that hard. It just hasn't been all that necessary.

Rewarding an original purchase is a much better fit to the current situation. The game is still playable, but original buyers get something more, which second-hand buyers have to buy separately. That's exactly what's going on here. The only difference in this case, ignoring the DLC pack, is that rather than shiny items being in the mix, it's a shiny extra mode of play. Yeah, it's been in there in previous iterations, but the same rules apply. The online play in this case is no different than any other DLC. People just got up in arms because it's stuff that hadn't been DLC before.



In short, the online mode is no different from any other free DLC that publishers include in first-hand purchases. The only reason anyone is complaining is because they don't see it for what it is and have come to expect it to not be treated as DLC from previous titles.

This is not to stop piracy in any way, shape, or form, regardless of how one interprets the guy's words.

[Yumil]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

In short, the online mode is no different from any other free DLC that publishers include in first-hand purchases. The only reason anyone is complaining is because they don't see it for what it is and have come to expect it to not be treated as DLC from previous titles.

People hate Online modes being treated as DLC for any game, regardless if previous titles in the series did not have it. I mean, look at all the crying with Resident Evil 5's versus multiplayer. People expect online multiplayer to be free, and it's slowly not going to be.

[Kim]

The problem was more that RE5's versus multiplayer was already on the disc and that Capcom was making them pay to unlock it.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Yumil

People hate Online modes being treated as DLC for any game, regardless if previous titles in the series did not have it. I mean, look at all the crying with Resident Evil 5's versus multiplayer. People expect online multiplayer to be free, and it's slowly not going to be.

That's a fair point. Most online services are subscription-based and/or rely on micro-transactions. We may eventually see a new model emerge with a lump sum setup if this continues.

I think that would be really interesting for the indie market, myself included. We've already seen the lump-sum-and-subscriptions setup with the likes of Everquest* (at least in the sense that you buy it on a CD; I've never played, but my brother bought the disc), but it might be interesting to combine the lump sum approach with micro-transactions, instead.