In the end the ones to blame for having to use Steam etc is those who did piracy, if copying and crackers didn't do it retail sales would have carried on as normal. Probably not that simple but to battle the lost income is to make sure if you want a game, buy it yourself from a shop or online. As long as I get good games, good online expereince I'm for it (younger me would have punched older me for that)
Completely agree with you mate. All industries ultimately have to bend to the will of their customers. In the end, the only way to buy games will be online and consumer rights and laws will need to change to take this into account. Currently games do not fall under the same umberalla as other consumer goods and therefore they can get away with the wild stuff they put in their EULAs. It is only by challenging and questioning (and more importantly changing purchasing habits) that things get changed.
Amazon Loaning Looks like it is only for eligible books, and is being quite strongly disputed as a breach of contract from publishers.
I think it would be cool to sell if Steam games at half price or something. And the game company gets 50% maybe. They have too get a cut otherwise would never allow it I'm not really worried about getting money back when selling second hand games, I just feel it's a waste to have so many on Steam I never play, and my friends could be playing them
if you actually READ the T&C`s for alot of new games - you are actually only buying a licence to play the content of the game and / or the physical media - any account thats created whilst playing the game remains the property of the said company.
This is also true when you buy in-game currency. You are buying the currency with a value of 0.000000001p each, and have no claim over the items that you buy with said game currency.
This is true. However I recently wrote to several companies asking them what rights I had with regard to transferring my accounts to benefactors should I include them in my Last Will and Testament. I contacted... Valve (Steam) Origin (EA) Microsoft (XBL) Sony (PSN) Apple (iTunes) All of them bar EA have a policy which allows me to transfer the ownership of my accounts including all purchased content to a named benefactor. This is just one step away from one being allowed to transfer these accounts legally while you are still alive. It's all just another case where legal rights and laws have not caught up with technology, so for the time being, companies can make it up as they go along. EULAs have been tested in court with varying results, but they have not been vigorously challenged in the gaming world. I would be very interested to see how they actually stand up legally when challenged. I do not condone piracy in any way by the way and as DRM goes, Steam is the least painful one in existance. I do however want to see better consumer rights when it comes to digital ownership of assets.
Here in the US, due to the First-sale Doctrine (as codified in the Copyright Act of 1976), a person may legally transfer a legal copy of copyrighted work without permission. Legally, the 2nd-hand market for movie DVDs, music CDs, and physical books is alive. Most software vendors attempt to get around this provision by specifically stating in the EULA that you are purchasing the license to use the software, not purchasing a copy of the software itself. Whether or not the terms of the EULA are valid seems to depend on which court hears the case. Nevertheless, it is not illegal to loan a book or movie to another person, as long as the transaction/media consumption does not involve a public avenue (i.e. I can't "loan" a movie to my friend by showing it to him on a large screen in a public park). As has been pointed out in the thread, Amazon has finally enabled lending function for the Kindle. However, they allow publishers to determine whether or not to lend any given work. As it is, I just borrowed World War Z from my library - on my Kindle. On the other hand, neither me nor my wife are able to lend any of the books we've bought for our respective Kindles. Even stranger is the fact that most of the books on my Kindle are public domain works that I got for free.
Seconding all of these. Pay attention to what you're buying and agreeing to. There are plenty of people kicking around these forums who don't agree with Steam's restrictions and therefore don't use their service. I always find it funny when people rip on developers whenever they say piracy makes it hard to develop on PC. If they'd just look at threads like these they'd see that there truly are people quite willing to pirate games. Or just look at the number of downloads completed for a torrent of a popular game.
Indeed, I was reading an interview with someone from gog, the other day and he estimates the ratio of bought to pirated for whitcher 2 is about 1:5 which is pretty appalling!
Here is the interview: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/29/i...witcher-2-piracy-why-drms-still-not-worth-it/
Far too many people want something for nothing. If you want to be able to keep playing games, we need to keep buying them. If even a quarter of the people who pirate a game, bought it instead, then maybe the next game from that developer would be a hell of a lot better. But why should they bother developing highly sophisticated games when people seem to not be bothered about supporting them for it and just torrent it instead. I just hope Steam don't go bust, although, with all their sales, I think if Steam go bust we'll have bigger things to worry about.
One reason to buy retail. Never purchased a game through steam, never will. Just add another title to my library or I can sell it on if I like. I've always valued that option more than maybe getting a game cheap on steam but then basically being told what I can do with that purchase.
It is appalling but irrelevant really. It would only be an issue if any of those who pirated the game would have otherwise bought it and I seriously doubt they would. Too many people in the industry come out with these kind of stats and then go on to use it as justification for this that and the other. In the end, no-one really knows how many people would have bought the game if it was impossible to get it for free and even if they somehow managed to calculate this the number would be a lot smaller than what they are currently quoting. I am very much against pirating games, I do consider it theft, but I also hate how the industry is making such wild claims about how piracy effects their revenue stream. There is absolutely no substantial proof how it affects them. The should instead concentrate on building a loyal customer base a creating a scenario where people want to buy the games.
Wow, you must be very limited with what you can buy. Games on Steam are so cheap I couldn't care less about having the option to sell it on. This year I've spent £74 on steam, and I've bought 28 games! That doesn't even count games I've gifted to friends so it could be even more. Sorry, why are we all complaining again?
How do you work that out? TBH I have half a dozen games that I still need to take out the wrapper. I tend to buy later on and/or when they're cheap and on offer, occasionally I may spend up to £15 on a game. But then I game on the PS3 as well and there's only so many hours in the day. Then again I get a load for christmas and birthdays which are separated by a good half a year so I always get a free stock up of games.
Thanks for all the comments. Firstly, its interesting to hear the comments about how cheap games are on Steam ?? Not sure which games you guys are buying, but the prices of new games i`v seen, i would not dream of buying from Steam. 1 the game is more expensive, 2 i have to download it. Secondly, all the Steam software starting up, logging in, is not stalling your computer, then you must be in the kitchen making coffee. and yes you need a second user & password to contact support. If i buy a game, play it, finish it, never to play it again, leave it on the shelf for 6 months 5 years whatever, why can we not sell it on for a low price to someone who wants it. But no we must burn it, make a bonfire, or rent a warehouse and keep for storage, incase some aliens visit earth after world war 3, and they will know what entertained us. As for piracy, i have a solution, but do not want to reveal it here. I believe pressure needs to be put on the publishers, not the consumers. I would have paid twice the price for Crysis, why because how much has gone into the game. If a game is using all of DX 11 features, physics, ect i do not mind paying high price, not at all. However, this may require a game using more then 1 disc, and publishers have this 1 disc rule, so our game quality is to be compromised. Not sure this relates to PC games, maybe only some publishers, but you get the idea. There are some good games on console, but no PC version. There are some very good games, but no updates and follow ons. This is very poor from the manufacturers NOT the consumers. All we hear about is logging in, cant do this, cant do that. The only power we have is, weather or not we buy the game. Brilliant, its all in our hands.
Not sure if you are trolling or not... I'll let someone else respond to your post, sounds like inane ramblings to me.
Nope. Steam startup - well, it is your choice to use hard drives instead of SSD. And the logging in & the remaining stuff is not stalling computer at all. If you see something running on screen, it doesn't mean it takes all your CPU cycles or all your hard drive I/O bandwidth. But again, you use hard drives . It is a part of the service and you agreed to be bound by the service agreement. It is like accepting a 1000 minute plan for your mobile phone and then complaining that you use only 100, so you want the money for 900 minutes back. Service doesn't allow reselling the games you bought through it, you agreed to be bound by the service agreement, end of discussion.
