Adam the Waster
Hunter
Nose i can reaszAny relation to Adam the Waster?
From the writing, I would think you're related. Just kidding!
A New Chapter for The Fun Pimps and 7 Days to Die
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InfiniteWarrior
Hunter
All the dancing around with definitions ignores the fact that we don't own games we supposedly "buy," including digitally, anymore. The shift to GaaS has been going on for a long time now and, afic, is complete with that move. Are you paying a subscription to play all of them. Not yet, no. But you are "leasing" them. The copies you bought from from any platform, e.g. Steam, EPIC, GOG, is not yours retroactively. Bought it 20 years ago? Not yours.
We have never owned games. You may have owned a physical copy of a license to play a game, but you never owned a game unless you created it, or bought the rights to it. Bought it 20 years ago, not yours, but, as long as you have that disc you can play it forever. The problem today is that with digital distribution and such things as GaaS, that license can be taken away or made irrelevant.
Dark Sun
Survivor
AFAIK what you're describing initially is a trademark, which of course no-one but the owner shall have the right to. The latter part is a great issue, though. Imagine buying a car for full price, only for 2 years later for an update to be received which activates a kill switch, forcing you to upgrade to a new model. Absolutely diabolical. Not looking to get political, but at least the Stop Killing Games movement has seen good headway with European Parliament, and Ubisoft has already complied with The Crew 2 and some other title. Oddly enough, they did so despite not being requiring to yet.
theFlu
Hunter
It's somewhat different; mainly, the person selling you the car is not the same as the one preventing you from using it. Your car manufacturer or vendor aren't stopping you from using it, the gubt is. Don't get me wrong, car makers are salivating over basically "breaks as a service"* atm, I think "bench warmers as a service" is already a thing.. that's kinda exactly the same, as it's just a software issue implemented by the seller.
Both are absolute nonsense, of course
InfiniteWarrior
Hunter
Back to digital copies as opposed to physical discs. Today, of course, you can buy a box in a physical store that contains nothing but marketing materials, for the moment, but you'll still be required to download a copy of the game (or a portion of the game) and open an "account" on a platform to play it on that platform using its launcher and, if it's single player, you'll usually be required to have an online connection to play a game that's on your physical disc drive for no other reason than DRM. (GOG makes much of its anti-DRM policies, but that's mostly marketing.) At first, we thought that was convenient. No more lost or damaged discs. All your games in a single, digital "library" that can be accessed any time, anywhere. That would be the bright side of digital distribution nearly everyone looks on, completely blind to all else. Now, for the dark side....
You can kind of see the dilemma for platforms. Suppose Steam ceased to exist tomorrow. Millions, if not billions, of copies of games sold. How would you ensure the people who bought them would still have in their possession copies of the game they bought, short of shipping everyone who bought them physical discs? Obviously, it would be easiest to say they never purchased or possessed those copies in the first place, so -- just so sorry -- but you can kiss them goodbye. And that is exactly what it has done, very recently altering the terms of its TOS.
I say "its" for a reason. Once upon a time, not so long ago, you purchased a license to use (if we're going to be that specific) a physical copy of software once. You may have further purchased upgrades for the software. Same with video games, which are, of course, software. You purchased the physical copy. Perhaps you paid a little extra for significant expansions. (DLCs by their proper definition.) And that was it. You could play it forever at no extra charge, provided you jumped through hoops the publisher and development company were unwilling to jump through to ensure it would run on current hardware. It was a physical copy you could hold in your hands same as movie and music cassettes and discs. With the advent of digital distribution of all things intangible came the temptation to ensure the end user possesses nothing; the private sector possesses everything; and further can engage in "ongoing monetization strategies" for a single piece of software. That temptation has proven to override every other consideration in the logic of utterly unconscious entities.
Corporations are not persons, regardless anything the SCOTUS has had to say about it.
"Corporations are legally chartered so that their first responsibility is not to their employees or customers, nor to the members of the societies they operate within, nor to the ecosystems of the earth, but to their stockholders, who with few exceptions are concerned only about return on investment." -- The Three Poisons, Institutionalized by David Loy.
That is not the logic of persons...though I get the sense it's becoming the logic of persons as I've met many persons of late who treat even their relationships with friends and family members as though they were business transactions. (They've internalized that logic themselves.) How much less compassion will an unconscious entity display?
That's why business entities had to be regulated by humans in the first place. They're not human and, now that they've been deregulated, that logic is running roughshod over all of us.
Marketing? To be sure I checked Wikipedia if something changed in the last years, but games are still DRM free on GOG it seems. Why do you think it is mostly marketing?
Yes. You just confused me somewhat by implying they would reissue/relabel the game after 4.0.
4.0 seems to be bandits, but the story would still be missing. So a free 5.0 seems certain and I think it will be 1-2 more before they declare the game finished.
InfiniteWarrior
Hunter
Something along these lines. Most companies act as though in they're in competition with one another for obvious reasons, so anything they do slightly "better" than the supposed competition is viewed as a marketing opportunity.
Perhaps we'll learn one day that conflict and competition is not alone our "nature," but also cooperation and coexistence. Else, the human race wouldn't have lasted this long.
theFlu
Hunter
So, I make a better game, and I can't .. market that? What is a market, if not the highest form of co-operation? I bring you a product, you bring me something of value in exchange, we both benefit.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a copyright abolitionist, no bit pattern can be "owned" by anyone, we shouldn't try to force it - but to consider a company highlighting their "actually better morals" as some vaguely malicious marketing ploy, is like pointing to you you're just trying to elevate yourself by pushing your morals to us ...
What came first, GoGs dislike of DRM or their marketing of it? While I think the dislike came first because they were starting out with restoring old games and copy protection stuff was a real pain in the ■■■ for them, I can't say for sure.
Fact is, GoGs complete catalogue is DRM-free, but while most gamers will tilt if their game suddenly doesn't work because of DRM, they buy at DRM.infested-shops while an alternative exists. GoG is hardly making a profit even though they actually ensure that most titles (except those needing official servers) can be played for perpetuality.
So I really don't know what GoG can do except trying to advertise that they actually have the better deal as best as possible and hope for customers actually appreciating that effort. You for example lament what would happen if steam ceased to be, but don't seem to appreciate what gog is doing. You seem to be looking for perfection, and that seems even less likely than a service like gog ever being really successful
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I don't get it. What you quoted shows that one measure, Low Emission Zones, actually works and shows real health benefits (with London as a successful example).
And I assumed you were talking exactly about this. Because you said you are not allowed to drive everywhere instead of saying you are not allowed to drive all the time.
Also I know that LEZ are a solution used in Germany. Cities like Stuttgart use it or have used it I think
Dead Smarty
Survivor
If you are using AI without checking and context the results are unreliable. One of the reasons that certain of these examples did fail was that people cheated the system by just buying a second car, the increased number of cars was mentioned as being reason of the failure.You don't need to go around the world to verify yourself... what a naive question!
It's just common sense. If ANY city in the world had solved pollution by stopping vehicle circulation (often only for some types of cars) on some days, like they usually do, you'd have seen HUGE titles in the mainstream media reporting this incredible miracle!
Have you seen something like that?
No. Because it never happened.
Also if you don't believe my logic, then I'm forced to show you some hard data:
But going back to the comparison between the game industry and the car industry:
Sorry for using AI, but is much easier to get data points this way than just searching the web over and over.
Indeed, you don't need to travel the world yourself but a bit of first hand experience does help.
But this is getting way off topic and I'll stop responding to save you any more embarrassement.
InfiniteWarrior
Hunter
Good thing seeming and being are not one and the same. I've not lamented what would happen if Steam ceased to be. I've just provided an example of a dilemma. Neither did I say I didn't appreciate what GOG is doing with its DRM policies. You did.
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Jost Amman
Hunter
I think I finally got you! I had a hard time figuring out the type of guy you are with your smart-■■■ remarks... but now I know!Don't get me wrong, I'm a copyright abolitionist, no bit pattern can be "owned" by anyone, we shouldn't try to force it - but to consider a company highlighting their "actually better morals" as some vaguely malicious marketing ploy, is like pointing to you you're just trying to elevate yourself by pushing your morals to us ...
You're a GREMLIN! And you have been fed after midnight and thrown into water!
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Reread my previous comments, you evidently missed my point.
On top of that, you only read the part of LEZs that you needed to make your point and ignored the shortcomings.
In ant case LEZs are irrelevant to my example.
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Jost Amman
Hunter
And if you're making claims on how I'm using AI without actually knowing how I use it, your response is silly.
Ah! I know, right? Reality... who needs it?
By the way, as Meganoth did, you completely ignored my comparison between the car industry and the game industry (or simply felt it was so irrelevant for you that you didn't need to reply). Good job.
Sometimes I wander why I waste my time discussing with people that don't really want to have a honest discussion.
Most people have the tendency to make counter points just to "win" an argument instead of discussing the topic.
theFlu
Hunter
Well, here you're confirming to me the type of guy you are ... you'll write out the first thing that comes to mind with no "internal testing" ... if I was tossed into water, there'd be a whole host of me.You're a GREMLIN! And you have been fed after midnight and thrown into water!
Lax
Survivor
I bought a game called "Memories of Mars". Was a pretty cool game until about a year or 2 ago they decided to abandon the online servers and now the game is vaporware. It's literally sitting in my gaming library and I can't play it at all.
Compare that to the physical copies I still possess of the original Deus Ex and System Shock 2, both I can still drop in a cd drive and play to this day. We are indeed living in different times now.
Compare that to the physical copies I still possess of the original Deus Ex and System Shock 2, both I can still drop in a cd drive and play to this day. We are indeed living in different times now.
InfiniteWarrior
Hunter
"Most people don't listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply." -- Stephen R. Covey Of course, that's also ancient wisdom repackaged and sold today as "self-help."Most people have the tendency to make counter points just to "win" an argument instead of discussing the topic.
I'm not sure how the car industry comparison really applies or comes in myself. They produce physical products. I'd think that has more to do with planned obsolescence and the unfounded belief that technology will solve all our ills when there are no silver bullets.
Most people aren't thinking about the shift from a product to a service economy, I don't think, largely enabled by the shift from physical to digital. I think we've become overly reliant on the tech sector myself.
Jost Amman
Hunter
In both cases the user/player reasonably expects continued use of something they paid for.