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[MrNyarlathotep]

This is why EA was comfortable removing the online pass for both the PS3 and Xbox 360 games moving forward; the publisher knows that both companies have their back. If Sony doesn’t give publishers the same protections as Microsoft, publishers like EA can just put their focus on Microsoft’s systems.

Sony may be gaining a reputation for being friendly to small developers, but if they don’t make sure to make themselves just as hospitable to large publishers the game is lost. EA has already all but pulled support for the Wii U

I would fucking love to see how an EA that only supports Microsoft consoles does in the marketplace, if EA try to strongarm Sony and force the issue.

Bye-bye sports licences.

Bye-bye competing with Activision and Ubisoft in sales.

Bye-bye relevancy as a publisher.

 

[xJavonta]

I disagree and agree with Faceless. Well written though.

 

[sechsterangriff]

They’re fighting a losing battle

Better than doing nothing.

 

[FoneBone]

I hate to agree with anything Open Source says, but I do have to admit that empty requoting gets annoying the 20th time you see a post, regardless of its quantity.

 

[MirageDwarf]

I would fucking love to see how an EA that only supports Microsoft consoles does in the marketplace, if EA try to strongarm Sony and force the issue.

Bye-bye sports licences.

Bye-bye competing with Activision and Ubisoft in sales.

Bye-bye relevancy as a publisher.

I always thought NFL/NBA requires that game must be released on all platforms. How could EA decide not to release Madden on Wii U this year?

 

[BruiserBear]

Kuchera has a new article

http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/...and-sony-why-the-xbox-one-backlash-doesnt-mat

IMO there are 3 big problems with the Xbox One.

1) Online DRM checks

2) Used games compromised in some manner.

3) Kinect required to be on for the console to even work.



I believe Sony is going to have a similar policy with used games, but that only accounts for 1 of those 3 things. The media and people defending Microsoft need to keep that in mind if they want to have a truly honest discussion about these consoles.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

I always thought NFL/NBA requires that game must be released on all platforms. How could EA decide not to release Madden on Wii U this year?

I don't know, but if that isn't currently the case it sure would be very quickly when Take 2 can show up and guarantee triple the sales revenue that EA with an "only on xbone" policy could.

 

[cresto]

The simple and honest truth about how technology is progressing is fairly easy and troubling to understand. Physical media is disappearing. What's replacing it is digital highway robbery. We no long have a right to the media we purchase. The movie studios have flat out said that the movies sitting on our shelves at home are not our property because it is there creation. All we have left will be subscriptions to all forms of media where we can certainly watch and listen when we want, but only if we continue to pay upwards of $10-$15 a month. Unfortunately, as soon as they feel that there isn't enough interest in a particular show or movie or game, it is gone and you no long have accessibility to that. I've scene this with XBLA. If a game no long has any draw, and you lose your download, it is no longer available to you. It's still your property, but you can't access it anymore. Steam does the same thing. You simply own the right to play the games, but you don't actually own the games themselves. It's a scary future. We are going to be told what to watch and how to watch it and our freedoms will continue to diminish until we no longer have the ability to say NO.

 

[Grief.exe]

edit: oops wrong thread.

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

This part is so well written and is exactly the same issues I have with these mega-publishers.

 

[RedSwirl]

Somehow on my darkest thoughts, I wish they would block, and then cry how sales are lower than what they were before.

I'm starting to think the same thoughts, but then they'd just blame piracy.

 

[Shaneus]

Kuchera's missed the point completely. It's not just people "posting on their favourite gaming websites". People are also directly tweeting their favourite developers and many of said developers are up in arms about the whole thing. MS might not give a shit about Faceless' epic post, but I bet they sure as shit listen to the person who gave them one of the biggest XBLA darlings, Braid.

And buying a Wii U is the best way to fight the backlash over anything else? You've got to be kidding me. The best way to "scare MS and Sony" isn't to buy a console that has features which were never thought through and has specs that aren't any improvement on current-gen consoles... it's to take that ~$600 you would've dropped and buy a fucking decent gaming PC. A spike in Wii U sales won't do shit, but a spike in medium-high end GPU sales would *perhaps* give them something to think about.

"And right now no one has had the chance to do anything". By Kuchera's standards, nobody *can*. An improvement in sales in the Wii U won't mean shit. It's getting discounted across the globe and any spike could easily be attributed to that. So what can people do (and have been doing)? Taking to the internet, posting on forums (reaching more than just like-minded gamers, but developers as well), commenting on YT videos (the fact that MS blocked comments is a sure fucking sign that they ARE noticing, you ignoramus) and actively DISCUSSING the problems with Microsoft's decision, rather than twiddling our thumbs and bleating "the best thing we can do is buy a far inferior console and hope they notice, herp derp".

He really should just give up and go back to "reporting" "news". Because all these opinion pieces of his really show is that his opinion is so far out of touch with 99% of the gaming public, he might as well be writing about the downfall of the Vectrex.

 

[Clark W. Griswold]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

Post of the forever right here.

 

[B-Genius]

And buying a Wii U is the best way to fight the backlash over anything else? You've got to be kidding me. The best way to "scare MS and Sony" isn't to buy a console that has features which were never thought through and has specs that aren't any improvement on current-gen consoles... it's to take that ~$600 you would've dropped and buy a fucking decent gaming PC. A spike in Wii U sales won't do shit, but a spike in medium-high end GPU sales would *perhaps* give them something to think about.

While I don't think buying a WiiU is the ultimate answer, I'm not sure buying a "gaming PC" is really speaking with one's wallet either. I can't remember the last time I bought a 2nd hand PC game, sold a PC game, or borrowed/lent a PC game. I'm not sure which of the PC games I play use harmful DRM, and have no idea where the various rights lie for all of my digital PC purchases over the last few years. My Steam library could disappear into the ether and I probably wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

Point is, the only good thing about PC gaming (in regard to the recent Xbone response) is that it doesn't watch you 24/7. Or does it? Every time my laptop is switched on it jumps on the wi-fi, and the internal webcam is pointed right at me!

Also, I have a feeling my PS3 will last a good while longer - what with the likes of The Last of Us, GTAV, Dark Souls 2, etc. The only reason I'll "pick a side" with the next gen consoles is, after all, the games on offer. I can see myself grabbing a WiiU purely for Bayonetta 2 and other exclusives if things don't drastically change in the coming weeks/months. But will Sony or MS notice that? Very much doubt it.

Edit: faceless for president.

 

[Mr.Wreckless]

I would fucking love to see how an EA that only supports Microsoft consoles does in the marketplace, if EA try to strongarm Sony and force the issue.

Bye-bye sports licences.

Bye-bye competing with Activision and Ubisoft in sales.

Bye-bye relevancy as a publisher.

You are seriously underestimating how much people love Madden and FIFA.

 

[Servizio]

New game sales will contain potassium benzoate.

That's bad.

 

[BlastProcessing]

I'm starting to think the same thoughts, but then they'd just blame piracy.

And tablets, and smartphones, and anything else that comes along.

 

[MasLegio]

I'm starting to think the same thoughts, but then they'd just blame piracy.

I think they would blame low prices on games. People that wait for new games to go down in cost are hurting the developers!!
They will want to make deals with retailers that they are not allowed to lower the price for new games the first year and then only 10% every 3 months.

 

[LeBoef]

I would fucking love to see how an EA that only supports Microsoft consoles does in the marketplace, if EA try to strongarm Sony and force the issue.

Bye-bye sports licences.

Bye-bye competing with Activision and Ubisoft in sales.

Bye-bye relevancy as a publisher.

- you expect that ps sales would be even without ea games (btw why just ea?)
- you expect that they ll go "all or nothing". what about basic game for one console + dlc and full experience for the other (sales on both + benefiting the drm publisher + license blocked if posts are true)
- you expect ea to be stupid

 

[FlyFaster]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

quoting this for posterity

 

[travisbickle]

Kuchera has a new article

http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/...and-sony-why-the-xbox-one-backlash-doesnt-mat

lol, they're just a Microsoft mouthpiece right?

 

[D.Lo]

The thing is, I just won't buy as many games if I can't get them cheap.

This may be because publishers have taught us that games become old hat after 2-3 months, and worthless after year, because they seemingly can only promote one big game at a time. You'd feel like an idiot buying Assassin's Creed 3 for $60 because they just spent 100 million dollars telling me it is a piece of crap compared to Assassin's Creed 4. They tell me that Assassin's Creed 4 is basically the same thing but better. Hell they even do things that imply previous games in a series with a continuing story are not even necessary (No Mass Effect 1 on PS3, No Mass Effect 1/2 on Wii U).

 

[Shaneus]

While I don't think buying a WiiU is the ultimate answer, I'm not sure buying a "gaming PC" is really speaking with one's wallet either. I can't remember the last time I bought a 2nd hand PC game, sold a PC game, or borrowed/lent a PC game. I'm not sure which of the PC games I play use harmful DRM, and have no idea where the various rights lie for all of my digital PC purchases over the last few years. My Steam library could disappear into the ether and I probably wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

Point is, the only good thing about PC gaming (in regard to the recent Xbone response) is that it doesn't watch you 24/7. Or does it? Every time my laptop is switched on it jumps on the wi-fi, and the internal webcam is pointed right at me!

Also, I have a feeling my PS3 will last a good while longer - what with the likes of The Last of Us, GTAV, Dark Souls 2, etc. The only reason I'll "pick a side" with the next gen consoles is, after all, the games on offer. I can see myself grabbing a WiiU purely for Bayonetta 2 and other exclusives if things don't drastically change in the coming weeks/months. But will Sony or MS notice that? Very much doubt it.

Edit: faceless for president.

My point was more in the thread of "if you have to buy something, buy *this*"... because that's the only way Kuchera can see the general public making an opinion known (as vague as that sentiment might be), not actually writing and voicing their disgust in public forums. It's a stupid thing to say in the first place, but me suggesting that buying something else in a slightly different vein would be a better alternative probably wasn't all that smart, either

The more I think about it, the more I'm highly inclined to, for the first time in a REALLY long time, not buy a console on or anywhere near launch (talking years here). 360 looks to have a decent life, PS3 is getting GT6 and my PC has so much shit on it from Steam sales, I shouldn't even be contemplating buying another game, let alone a new console.

Had all this bullshit not gone down with the One, perhaps I would've considered buying one... only because I like having cool shit to fuck around with. But the decision to purchase one or not was very much on a knife's edge without all this crap on top of it (never mind them wasting far too much time showing that Remedy trailer that made no sense and Another Fucking Call of Duty Game) to start with.

 

[Jim Sterling]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

 

[Moussuki]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

Wow, just wow

 

[Ollie Pooch]

Thanks faceless. And Kuchera can suck my fucking culo.

 

[Mengy]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

WELL SAID good sir, spot on! Post of the Freakin Year right there.

 

[Shaneus]

lol, they're just a Microsoft mouthpiece right?

I don't think so. Their mouthpiece seems to be practically sewn on the right cheek of Microsoft's arse.

 

[Mengy]

It's actually quite a silly, inane screed that shows complete ignorance about why the industry actually makes that "military porn" and how good or bad it is for them. It just tells people what they want to hear in emotional, rabble-rousing language and style. And those who are too ineloquent or dim-witted to articulate the same sentiment, and instead can come up with nothing better than absurd analogies to used cars, admire it. It absolves their greed and their blame in creating the current situation. It's the publishers' fault!

The repeated quoting of a long post to give the neogaf equivalent of a "Like" with no further commentary or acknowledgement of counter-arguments isn't exactly a hallmark of intelligence, is it? But point taken.

You've got a real knack for calling anyone who disagrees with you stupid and ignorant, don't you? It's not good etiquette, and it makes you appear very negative. I dare say I don't like your attitude, sir.


Now, let me sum this entire argument up with an example of mine.

I bought Master of Magic back in 1993 for $50. I still play the game today. I have to run it in DosBox to play it in Win7 and I no longer use the 3.5" floppys to intsall it as I have the files saved on a CD, but even today twenty years later I can still enjoy playing my game that I bought.

You see, it's a product that I paid money for, so I own it and can use it whenever I want to. Just like the Lord of the Rings hardcover book box set I bought over twenty five years ago, I can still break out my books and read them today too. Just like all of my DVD's and blu-rays that I own. Just like My ColecoVision that I bought back in the eighties and all of the cartridge games that I own for it. They are all playable today, so I don't feel bad about having paid upwards of $40 - $50 dollars for most of those games. All of my Transformers that I still have in a closet somewhere, if I had the urge to break them out today and set them up on a shelf in my kitchen, I'd be able to do it. Without paying any fees or royalties to Hasbro.

You see, when a customer purchases a product, they have the right to keep it and use it for as long as they own it. Video games are no different, and if they become different, then they are no longer products worth paying money for. If the customer wants to play Simcity twenty years from now, they should be able to. I own every Simcity game up to and including Simcity 4, but I won't buy Simcity 5, because if EA pulls the server plug then my money is wasted. It's not a good purchase for me. If consumers want to trade a game in for credit because it was not all it was advertised to be, they should be able to. Just like I could sell my ColecoVision and all of it's games today, or I could sell my Transformers if I so desired to.

This entire argument is about protecting consumer rights, and not enabling an industry to destroy said consumer rights.

You seem to be just fine with losing consumer rights, in fact you welcome it if it makes the industry stronger. The reason why Faceless's post keeps getting quoted is because people disagree with you, and people agree with him 110%. It's not about screwing "the man", it's not about lemmings running off a cliff just because it's popular, it's about people not wanting to lose their freedoms and rights.

Period.

And if the "industry" needs to destroy consumer rights in order to sustain itself, then it deserves to fail. But even if it does fail there are plenty of indie and small developers who disagree with you and Microsoft, they fall on the side of Faceless and the "mob" as you call it here on GAF, and they will continue to make games that do not infringe on consumer rights, and they will be successful. Because they get it. And they aren't hampered by consumer rights.

The video game crash of the 80's didn't destroy the industry, it revolutionized it. Maybe we need another revolution....

 

[Jocchan]

Nah, I just find it amusing how the rabble gets all agitated and emotional when they think someone's going to take away their ba-ba. And how fired up they get when they can get behind an advocate who, unlike them, can articulate their irrational desires into something more than a plaintive whine.

Carry on!

I'll be honest. I seriously considered the possibility of your posts in this thread being an elaborate satire of the industry as a whole. All the checks were there: arrogance, apparent inability to look at the bigger picture, overreliance on cherry-picked details accompanied by total disregard for equally important ones, arrogance again, scapegoating (because all of our problems are someone else's fault). In fact, being myself a fan of most things meta, for that short while I admired that.
But your posts in the last page, sadly, seem to indicate I was wrong. Bummer.

More on topic, some truly good posts in this thread. I appreciate their honesty, how they make this thread worth its while, and they make me wish I had more time to contribute myself to this discussion.

 

[Mrbob]

You are seriously underestimating how much people love Madden and FIFA.

EA would cripple their revenue totals going completely exclusive to one platform. Madden and Fifa are only a small part of their overall portfolio. Even then, these two mega franchises would take a hit.

 

[Jake Tower]

It was their drawing shit that doomed them.

Right. It wasn't used games. Glad you agree.

 

[DrForester]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

Late to this party, but well said. Very well said.

 

[Shaneus]

Late to this party, but well said. Very well said.

More bumps the better. Everyone needs to see it.

 

[Brashnir]

EA would cripple their revenue totals going completely exclusive to one platform. Madden and Fifa are only a small part of their overall portfolio. Even then, these two mega franchises would take a hit.

Would they really? How much do the first iterations of these franchises on new hardware sell? I seem to remember them selling best on PS2 for a couple years after 360 was on the market, and the 360 was a software-selling monster for its first few years.

If EA kept taking the low-hanging fruit of 360/PS3 sales for FIFA and Madden, while putting their full weight behind only one next-gen console, the next console war would probably be over before it started.

Say what you want about the "dudebro" crowd, but their buying power and influence on the industry is unmistakable. Piss off EA and your console can get Dreamcasted in a hurry.

 

[josecitoxnyo]

Kaz will save us.

 

[fritolay]

Not many people are going to buy a PC over a console. Not going to happen at all. People want to play a console with other people in the same room with controllers on their TV. This is why people have favored consoles over PC's. It doesn't matter if you can replicate a console experience with a PC either. Customers want something simple. Hook it up to the TV, plug it in, put a game in, turn it on. Especially with games like Madden and FIFA.

This is where if a steam box or something that was easy, you just buy and play, it could take off if you were to get customers to think it was a console. For some reason this is kind of interesting to me as Nintendo marketed the NES as a Nintendo Entertainment System, more of a computer than just a video game system after the video game industry crash. Once they got retailers to think that they were able to get it into the stores.

With digital distribution it is a little harder for people to get games. They have to have a credit card entered, or buy a points card from a store. They can still buy the game at a local store.

A computer, it doesn't have an easy digital distribution system if you are talking about Windows. Maybe MS is trying with Windows 8 but it seems to have failed. Yeah there is steam, and Origin, and buying from other web sites to download. But those options actually make it more confusing, less easy. It still is the more nerdy way to game. It is farther away from buying a game and putting it in the system, and playing.

The answer is not to spend 600 dollars and buy a PC that is not going to work. Besides, the PC how many people buy used games or rent?

 

[Wolves Evolve]

Kuchera has a new article

http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/...and-sony-why-the-xbox-one-backlash-doesnt-mat

He is just.. I mean.. this guy used to know a lot about the industry. We've had, what - six people from Sony and two from Microsoft say they're listening to the campaign? And after all that's happened in the last four years, he's going to say social media campaigns don't do anything and never translate to real changes by companies? Christ, it seems like that's all the news is these days.

The degree by which this article seems drastically out of touch surprises me, because I used to like Ben's musings and perspective. I don't see it as pro-MS, just... insanely out of touch.

 

[fritolay]

I think more companies should look at what made Apple products, and their media, successful.

Buy a new device, login, you have your media including games ready to go. Easy for most customers.

Yes comparing iphone 3 to iphone 4 isn't fair because it has been 8 years since the last Sony and MS systems. But this is just greed by them not to allow previous digital games.

 

[KTGarda]

One thing I haven't seen asked or answered about this situation; if consoles are destined to become stripped down PCs, what's the benefit to owning one over a PC?

 

[NeededSleep]

Kuchera has a write up about the ps4 announcement:

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/how-to-win-at-e3-sony-savages-microsoft-on-pricing-drm-used-games-and-then-

 

[Dead Man]

LOL

 

[ambientmystic]

Lol Kuchera was totally wrong on in his original article.

Saying Sony would do the same. SMFH.

How's that crow taste?

 

[AkuMifune]

Kuchera has a write up about the ps4 announcement:

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/how-to-win-at-e3-sony-savages-microsoft-on-pricing-drm-used-games-and-then-

Good article, needs crow.

You don't get to say the bullshit that came out of his mouth and act like nothing happened.

 

[Htown]

Kuchera has a write up about the ps4 announcement:

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/how-to-win-at-e3-sony-savages-microsoft-on-pricing-drm-used-games-and-then-

 

[Acorn]

The ps4 saved used games and that's a good thing - his next op ed

 

[Tallshortman]

Everyone is jumping ship. I don't know how he goes from defending MS DRM to praising Sony for doing the exact opposite.

 

[Amir0x]

oh man that article is rich considering the capitulating he has done to Microsoft since this situation happened. i guess now it's too obvious to pretend there's not a huge problem in camp Microsoft lol

i wont knock a man for making a mistake, though... he's where he should be now, so it is what it is.

 

[Oppo]

Hey Kuchera

I guess that fart in the wind was a bit louder than you expected, huh

 

[QuicheFontaine]

Nice volte-face mate. Seriously, if you put his earlier article next to this new one, you wouldn't guess that the same person wrote them.

 

[catstronaut]

"The next thing is that the used-game market all but disappears. GameStop may not be able to aggressively hawk used games for $5 less than the new price to customers under these new controls, which is great if you're a developer or publisher. Once that secondary market is removed you can suddenly profit from every copy of your game sold, and as profit margins rise it's possible we'll see prices drop."

Imagine believing that after such a long period of having $50, then $60 games be the norm, that developers will start reducing the price of their games because there are no used games cutting into their market. This just doesn't happen; this isn't how companies run. Prices don't go down when you have a monopoly on a good or service. Prices don't go down because companies are making more money. I didn't see a single AAA title sell for less than standard retail this gen. And I only saw one B-tier title for less this gen: Sonic Racing Transformed, a great game that likely priced itself low solely to undercut its competitor, Mario Kart.

Imagine thinking that after all this time, companies will just reduce prices on their games because they can. Not because their games are in low demand, not because they're trying to break into the market, but because everyone is buying their game and they can afford to price low.

The sole exception, I think, is Plants Versus Zombies. One game out of however many that just sold too well, that sold so well they could afford to give away downloads.