And they're trying real hard to crack down on the used game market. If they thought they could get away with it, they'd require online validation for a game purchase and associate the game with the console, so no other console can validate that copy of that game. You'd have to modify your console to bypass the check or set all games to "validated", which of course is against the EULA and illegal in the US regardless.
Of course they'd prefer the DRM to check online throughout play, such as they've done with a lot of PC games lately. But that ends up ruining the play experience because the connection isn't 100% foolproof so it shuts down frequently.
Their desire for control has no effective limit beyond the limits of our submission. If we didn't complain they'd control us as much as they're physically able to, like crushing someone in a vise. They control us as much as they can before we cry out and revolt.
Yeah it's only games blah blah, not worth complaining about, if you don't like it don't buy, just go to the park or play a board game if you don't like the deal. Who cares if heartless beasts destroy something wonderful for everyone?
Augh, go put on a tinfoil hat.
"Heartless beasts?" These are people you are talking about. People with jobs, lives, and who are trying their best to make a living.
You ever play Papers Please? You should.
They have done a lot of things badly but they have done a lot of things well too. Look at the greenlight system. It jumpstarted indie gaming in a big way.
You basically just sidestepped my point about tax evasion, then made a nice strawman about DRM.
No, I don't agree with DRM. But I do understand it. I'll complain about it, but I wont call them evil for implementing it.
1: I didn't say evil. A suit who lets his programmers make a wonderful game, lets his PR team make everyone salivate for it, and then slaps always-on-internet DRM on it is exactly like a man who offers a child an ice cream and then shits in it.
They shit in our ice cream.
And it's not necessary. They're just paranoid that someone might play the game without paying for it - for example, if you get tired of it and hand it to someone else. That represents a player who would have otherwise paid for the game, and revenue for the company.
2: A corporation can be shitty because of its corporate culture, and because everyone in it is working to benefit the company and ignoring their moral compass. You get a million hands holding up an empty throne. Sure those people are just keeping their heads down and trying to get through the working day. But that rationale doesn't work: if you do something lame because you were ordered to, you are still responsible for doing that thing.
When a high level manager at Nestle buys a local water supply and screws over the local population, then orders too much water pumped out - way more than the contract allowed - and screws them over even more ... that's a bad thing happening and a human is doing it.
I don't give a shit about corporations because they don't give a shit about me. I'm a potential giver of money, consumer of goods. I am not a human being from a corporate perspective; and to me, corporations are ready excuses for organized malfeasance.
3: I'm not using DRM as a strawman. Steam is a DRM system, and now they're trying to restrict people from doing something they used to be able to. The tool they're using to enable that restriction is already in place in the Steam DRM.
4: If Steam or GOG are not paying the required taxes, or the publisher doesn't pay the required taxes, I'm sure the country will ask politely for them to obey the law and if they refuse the country will sue and/or sanction them appropriately. I trust that when I buy a candy bar, the store will pay the appropriate sales taxes out of whatever they charged me for that candy bar.
They can explicitly add the tax to the bill so when you pick up the candy you think it's $1 but you actually have to pay $1.09, but the customer doesn't pay that 9-cent tax - the final seller does. It shows up on their tax return. The buyer is supposed to deduct the sales tax as an exemption, or it's included in the general exemption on an "easy" tax form.
5: Tinfoil hat? Now who is arguing dirty?
6: Steam Greenlight was created because Steam knew it would make them money and further entrench them in their market. Anything else is PR spin.
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Topic: Steam/Valve Cracking Down on Regional Gifts/Trading (Read 7270 times)